Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

QUESTIONS TO THE PRIME MINISTER

Mr. Speaker: I must express my regret to the House that force of habit overcame the printers, who have put on the Order Paper the time of the Prime Minister's Questions as 3.15 p.m., but, as we resolved some days ago to stop Questions at 12 noon, I do not suppose that anyone has been deceived.

PETITION

Traffic Congestion, Altrincham and Sale

Mr. Holt: I wish to present a Petition on behalf of some 3,000 residents of the Boroughs of Altrincham and Sale. The Petition refers to the increased volume of traffic along three highways, the A.56, B.5397 and B.5166, which run through those boroughs, and to the enormous congestion, the danger to life, and loss of amenity. It says:
Wherefore your humble Petitioners pray that the Honourable Commons of the United Kingdom of Gt. Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled urgently initiate the necessary legislation to expedite the finance and construction of the proposed western and eastern by-pass roads round the Boroughs of Altrincham and Sale in the County of Chester, or failing such legislation, and in justice to the grievances of the Petitioners, urge the Minister of Transport to publish to your Petitioners the full list of road projects to be afforded priority to the said by-pass roads, together with his considered reasons for affording such priority.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

To lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF POWER

Shipbuilding Industry (Steel Prices)

Mr. Bence: asked the Minister of Power if he will give a direction in the national interest to the Iron and Steel Board under Section 10(1) of the Iron and Steel Act, 1953, authorising the Board to reduce the maximum price of steel to be charged by producers to the shipbuilding industry.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. John Peyton): No, Sir.

Mr. Bence: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that British shipbuilders are paying to the British steel industry higher prices than Continental shipbuilders are paying for Continental steel, which makes the British shipbuilders' competitive position much inferior to that of the continental shipbuilding industries? Really, could he not, as he has power to do, reduce the maximum price which steel manufacturers charge for steel? Could he tell me whether individual steel companies in this country are at liberty to reduce the prices of steel or give discounts to particular customers for heavy bulk purchases, or are they bound by the price fixed by the Steel Board?

Mr. Peyton: The price fixed by the Steel Board is the maximum price. The Board did reduce the maximum price to shipbuilders by about £1 a ton in December last year. It has recently carried out one of its normal reviews of steel prices and has concluded that no further reduction is necessary. I see no reason to disagree.

Mr. Bence: But surely, a £1 a ton reduction in December, 1963, while Continental steel prices are far lower than ours! Really, could not the hon. Gentleman take some action to break this monopoly ring in the steel industry and force it to be more competitive with Continental manufacturers, in order to give that help which our shipbuilding industry needs?

Mr. Peyton: I would reject any suggestion that British steel prices are not competitive. Of course, prices change from time to time in relation to Continental prices.

National Fuel Policy

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Minister of Power what steps the Government are taking towards a national fuel and energy policy; and whether he will now reconsider the policy of Her Majesty's Government on the writing down of National Coal Board assets, which have become devalued but which are still serviced at 3 per cent. per annum.

The Minister of Power (Mr. F. J. Erroll): I refer the hon. Member to my replies to the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) on 28th November, 1963, and my statement in the House on 29th November, 1963. On the second part of the Question, I see no need for a change of policy at present.

Mr. Davies: Was it not in February, 1961, that the present Government made statements in the House about a national fuel policy, and yet the nation, despite the statements, is still not clear where we stand with regard to a national policy? With regard to the estimated 4 per cent. increase in production by the Electricity Board arising from atomic energy, in view of the over-rosy picture painted during the ebullient time of Zeta, may we now have a reassessment of our whole fuel policy and the relationship of atomic energy to it?

Mr. Erroll: No, Sir; I do not think that an exposition of fuel and power policies can really be made in answer to a question, and a supplementary question at that. I would refer the hon. Gentleman to my statement on the subject in the debate on the Second Reading of the Electricity and Gas Bill on 29th November last.

Mr. Skeet: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that a national fuel policy should involve two elements—low cost energy available to the consumer and absolute freedom of choice of fuel? Will he also consider the difficulties of obtaining such elements in a national fuel policy if the electricity workers are not prepared to adhere to a three-year arrangement?

Mr. Erroll: I should like to study the succinct definition of the policy put forward by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Davies: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware of the magnificent effort of the publicly-owned National Coal Board? Is it not acknowledged that private industry, since public ownership of the coal mining industry, has virtually been subsidised by hundreds of millions of £s by the National Coal Board being able to provide cheap industrial coal? Is not this admitted by the Institute of Economic Affairs, whose papers are presumably read by that defender of the freedom of private enterprise, the hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet)?

Petrol (Octane Rating)

Mr. Pargiter: asked the Minister of Power whether he will take the necessary steps to oblige petrol distributors to display clearly the octane rating of the various brands of petroleum as well as the respective retail price.

Mr. Peyton: No, Sir, I am not convinced that legislation for this purpose would be justified.

Mr. Pargiter: Surely octane rating is the valid test of every petrol. Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that petrol can be sold with any sort of claim but that unless there is some standard by which the public can judge, in this as in many other things covered by the Merchandise Marks Act, it will not have the sort of protection it should have? Should not this be considered?

Mr. Peyton: If general legislation were required, that would be for my right hon. Friend the secretary of State for Industry and Trade. I do not accept that only octane rating is a valid test of the standard petrol. There are such matters as volatility and absence of deleterious material.

Mr. Pargiter: It is octane rating that is used in the testing of engines by the manufacturers and if it were established generally as a test, would not the public be in a better position to know what it was buying?

Mr. Peyton: I am aware of what the hon. Gentleman said in the first part of his supplementary question but I still maintain that this would not be a very useful guide to motorists.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL

Mining Subsidence

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Power if he will introduce amending legislation to provide for comprehensive compensation for consequential damage in cases of mining subsidence.

Mr. Peyton: No, Sir.

Mr. Swingler: Does not the Parliamentary Secretary think that the time has come to recognise that all citizens should be comprehensively covered against damage resulting from the hazards of mining subsidence? Is it not illogical and unjust that—having recognised that when dwelling houses and other structures are damaged the citizens concerned should be comprehensively compensated—where, for example, as happened in my constituency recently, a citizen's television set is completely smashed by the tilt of the house he should not also be able to claim compensation for that?

Mr. Peyton: This is a very difficult problem. It was fairly recently considered by Parliament, in 1957 when the Coal Mining (Subsidence) Act was passed. The difficulty would be that if one extended the amount that could be recovered to consequential damage, including personal injury, it would place an immense burden on the coal industry and the National Coal Board and would produce very great difficulties of definition.

Mr. Harold Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that when the Departmental Committee on Mining Subsidence, on which I was privileged to serve, some years ago investigated the problem of mining subsidence we were aware of these possibilities of consequential claims for damage, and, in order that the human relationship between the National Coal Board and people living in mining areas may be put right, is it not about time that we somehow or other evolved an answer to this admittedly very difficult problem? I sincerely hope that the hon. Gentleman will not just turn this aside.

Mr. Peyton: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the way he has acknowledged the difficulties. If he wishes to

make any representations to my right hon. Friend, I can assure him that they will be looked at. However, I am equally obliged to say that we have to be careful not to put a quite intolerable burden on the National Coal Board.

Mr. Swingler: While I acknowledge the difficulties and appreciate the burden on the National Coal Board in this respect, may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he does not think it wrong that citizens who live in mining areas should have to suffer, in addition to the discomfort anyway caused by mining subsidence, the financial loss where serious subsidence damages their property, which is not very frequent or widespread?

Mr. Peyton: I cannot add to what I have said.

Dust Conditions (Research)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Power what research is at present being carried out into dust conditions in coal-mining; how many persons are concerned in this research; what funds are devoted annually to the purpose; and what results have been obtained so far in regard to the causes and incidence of pneumoconiosis, chronic bronchitis and emphysema among mineworkers.

Mr. Peyton: About 220 people are employed in the research into dust conditions in coalmining undertaken by the National Coal Board, the Medical Research Council and my Department. The cost is around £450,000 a year. Information concerning the work is published from time to time.

Mr. Swingler: Can the hon. Gentleman say that a definitive report will be made to Parliament about the results of this research and, in particular, the connection between the incidence of chronic bronchitis and emphysema among mine-workers and the occupational hazards to which they are subject? Is he not aware that there is rising public opinion in mining and other areas that chronic bronchitis and emphysema ought to be recognised for National Insurance payments? Will he not issue a definitive report as a result of the research?

Mr. Peyton: I should not like the hon. Gentleman to think that there was any


doubt in my mind about the importance of the problem. On the other hand, research into pneumoconiosis, because of the nature of the disease itself, is necessarily very slow. Certainly as soon as any clear results are available from the research, they will be made available. As I said, information is published from time to time by the bodies which are responsible for research work, and I ought to make it clear that the research work by the different bodies is coordinated.

Mr. T. Fraser: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a growing belief in mining areas and among mineworkers in particular that men who are disabled by dust diseases and who had formerly expected to be certificated as suffering from pneumoconiosis are now being said to suffer from chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and that these men and their families are convinced that the disability arises from their occupation? Is it not time some further steps were taken to give adequate compensation to men who are so badly disabled in the nation's service?

Mr. Peyton: It is not yet known whether exposure to dust is a significant factor in causing the diseases of bronchitis and emphysema. The problem of diagnosis is frequently raised in the National Joint Pneumoconiosis Committee of which I am the chairman, and was raised at the last meeting. I am always prepared to look at the matter again to see if difficulties can be overcome.

National Coal Board (Interest Charges)

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Minister of Power what is the present payment per year by the National Coal Board in standing interest charges.

Mr. Erroll: The N.C.B.'s outstanding liabilities to the Exchequer fluctuate from year to year and interest payments vary accordingly. Interest payable for 1963 was about £41 million.

Mr. Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my estimate for the year before was £43 million? What pressure is he bringing upon that troglodyte organisation, the Treasury, to formulate a new policy towards this burden

on the National Coal Board? Is it not time, with these pits closed, that assets now dead should no longer receive a 3 per cent. interest? If the coal industry is to be given the chance it deserves, there should be a new approach by the Treasury and the right hon. Gentleman's Department. Is he considering ways and means of cutting out the dead wood of worn-out assets?

Mr. Erroll: The greater number of the assets on which interest is payable are alive and not dead.

Mr. T. Fraser: Has the right hon. Gentleman ever considered a capital reconstruction of the industry?

Mr. Erroll: The subject has been considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — GAS

Employees (Provident Associations)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Power why he will not issue a general direction to all gas boards prohibiting the practice of general managers circularising employees in their departments on behalf of provident associations, with a view to promoting the interests of private medicine.

Mr. Peyton: Because there is no good reason for doing so.

Mr. Pavitt: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his colleague the Minister of Health has as his policy that the National Health Service should give a service unsurpassed whether one pays for it or not, and that the circular which his Minister sent to the north-west region permitting it to organise fee-paying services is likely to undermine the whole principle of the National Health Service? Is it not his right hon. Friend's job to support the policy of the Minister of Health.

Mr. Peyton: Questions relating to the National Health Service are entirely matters for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health. I have no information whatever that employees of any boards are under pressure to contribute to these schemes. I agree that it would be wrong if they were under such pressure. If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence of that, I shall be glad to look at it.

Mr. Pavitt: Is it not wrong for one Government Department to undermine the work of another? Is not the organisation of these groups within a Government-sponsored section in the Ministry of Power an example of bad co-operation between two Departments? Is it not the job of his Department to co-ordinate with the Ministry of Health on this?

Mr. Peyton: I understand that the policy of my right hon. Friend towards these schemes is one of benevolent neutrality. It is not the intention or policy of my Department to undermine the policy of the Ministry of Health.

Mr. K. Robinson: Would not the hon. Gentleman at least go so far as to say that he considers it inappropriate for a nationalised board even to promote the interests of private medicine in this way, which is what happened in a case about which he knows?

Mr. Peyton: I do not think that it would be right to interfere with the normal freedom of a nationalised board any more than with that of private industry.

Oral Answers to Questions — ELECTRICITY

Nuclear Power Programme

Mr. Millan: asked the Minister of Power what consultations he has had with the Central Electricity Generating Board on the Powell Report; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Minister of Power what discussions he has had with the Central Electricity Generating Board on the kind of reactor to be used in the next series of nuclear power stations.

Mr. Erroll: The Central Electricity Generating Board has been fully consulted during the consideration of the future nuclear power programme.

Mr. Millan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is some mystery surrounding the Powell Report and the Government decision on the next generation of nuclear power stations? Will he give an assurance that, when the Government's decision is announced, a White Paper will be published enabling hon.

Members to know the views of the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Atomic Energy Authority whereby we may judge whether the decision is right or not? Can we have the maximum information about this? At the moment, we have none.

Mr. Erroll: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, on several occasions in reply to Questions recently, has said that a statement will be made.

Mr. Hamilton: This House is being continually frustrated by lack of information not only on this subject but on many others. If we have to work in the dark we are not able to criticise effectively what the Government are doing. This will be a very serious decision affecting the nation's power supplies for generations. It is, therefore, important to get the decision right. We must have the information available so that we can form our opinion of the efficacy and intelligence of the Government's eventual decision.

Mr. Erroll: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's concern, but I ask him to await the statement.

Mr. Skeet: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it would be extremely useful to have a technical report as well as the statement? Someone will try to make a general analysis of the information and the House will be in some difficulty if such technical information is not available. We should be much better placed if it were made available to us.

Mr. Erroll: I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern, but I ask him also to await the statement.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Schooleavers, The Hartlepools

Commander Kerans: asked the Minister of Education if he will give the estimated numbers of boy and girl school leavers in The Hartlepools at Easter.

The Minister of Education (Sir Edward Boyle): Information provided by the local education authorities concerned suggests that the number may be about 500, divided roughly equally between boys and girls.

Commander Kerans: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that these figures are higher from time to time and that the number of school leavers is about to increase? Will he consult his right hon. Friends with a view to attracting further industry to the area to take up the slack in employment? We never seem to catch up. We still have 6·3 per cent. unemployment.

Sir E. Boyle: I am not responsible for industry. I recently visited the North-East to discuss the contribution which the education service could make to solving the problem of unemployment among young people. As my hon. and gallant Friend will recall, I included in last year's building programme a technical college for The Hartlepools. I hope that might provide greater opportunities for school leavers.

Mrs. White: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with the arrangements for advising school leavers in areas of this kind, where the normal prospects of employment are not good and where particularly careful advice may be needed to make sure that we do not waste ability?

Sir E. Boyle: I am obliged to the hon. Lady for saying that. This was one of the matters I ventured to discuss on my visit two months ago. I agree that this is a subject which my Department should always be bringing to the attention of the local authorities.

Mr. P. Williams: What work is done by voluntary bodies or the churches to help my right hon. Friend's Department in relation to school leavers?

Sir E. Boyle: I cannot answer that without notice, but my hon. Friend is quite right in suggesting that the churches and voluntary bodies are taking a very great interest in this matter.

Research Projects

Mr. Merlyn Rees: asked the Minister of Education if he will sponsor through the Ministry of Education research fund a number of small research projects in co-operation with Her Majesty's inspectors of schools, local education authorities, institutes of education with constituent training

colleges, and with practising teachers, whoshould be consulted at an early stage.

Sir E. Boyle: I am currently supporting a wide variety of projects from my research fund, and will send the hon. Member a list. I am ready to consider any proposals put to me, or where necessary, to initiate projects.

Mr. Rees: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I am grateful for the document, 'Provision for Research ", which he has sent to me? Is it not important that the classroom teacher should be able to initiate research and not just be restricted to carrying it out because it has been brought from above by an inspector? Will he consider the means of bringing to the notice of classroom teachers the results of research already taking place? Unless it gets to them it is wasted.

Sir E. Boyle: I would not rule out the possibility of classroom teachers initiating research. Many of them are now associated with much of the research going on. For example, one line of research is into streaming in primary schools and whether it is necessary or even desirable. I agree that it is most important to make sure that the classroom teachers know of the research carried out, and we ensure this through bulletins and other means.

Teachers (Degree Courses)

Mr. Barnett: asked the Minister of Education how many students who have been to, a teachers' training college have been admitted to read for a university degree during the last three academic years; and what steps he will take to facilitate application by certificated teachers for internal and external degree courses.

Sir E. Boyle: The information asked for in the first part of the Question is not available. It is for the universities to determine the conditions upon which they will admit students for degree courses. They will no doubt be aware of the suggestion of the Robbins Committee that universities should allow students who transfer from a training college certificate course some remission of their normal requirements.

Mr. Barnett: As one who, as a practising teacher, read for an external degree, may I assure the right hon. Gentleman that a great many impediments are put in the way of certificated teachers who try to do this? Is he satisfied with his Answer? Does not he think that a positive policy by the Ministry and suggestions to the universities of ways in which they might facilitate this development would be a good thing? Does not he think that a certain amount of research on the subject might be feasible?

Sir E. Boyle: It may well be that some research would be feasible but this is part of a larger question concerning the whole future of the training colleges and the system of full-time higher education. If the hon. Gentleman would care to discuss this with me some time, I should be pleased to do so. This is too big a subject to deal with fully at Question Time.

Mr. Barnett: There is the further important matter of the extent to which teachers, during their teaching careers, tend to become out of date. There is a strong case for further degree study.

Sir E. Boyle: It also raises the question of in-service training, which we are considering carefully.

St. Paul's School, Coven

Miss Lee: asked the Minister of Education when the proposed new school at School Lane, Coven, Staffordshire, will be begun; when completion can be expected; how many additional places will be provided; and whether he is aware that the expansion of population in recent years has created an urgent problem of overcrowding in the existing schools.

Sir E. Boyle: No project to provide new premises has been requested by the Staffordshire local education authority for its 1965–68 major building programme. I understand that it is keeping the position under review but does not regard present or expected numbers at St. Paul's School as justifying a high priority.

Miss Lee: May I take it from that that if there is any lag in the provision of essential school places in this area, it

is coming from the county authority and not the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry.

Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Lady is quite right. It has not been included in the proposals put to me by the local authority. The programmes for 1965–66 and 1966–67 are about to be announced. Perhaps I may say that the Friarswood project, about which the hon. Lady's hon. Friend has so often asked me, will be included and it will be open to the authority to put additional proposals for 1967–68 if it so wishes; but at the moment, no proposal for the project mentioned in the Question has been made.

Local Sound Broadcasting

Mr. Marsh: asked the Minister of Education if he will make a statement on the educational possibilities of local sound broadcasting.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: asked the Minister of Education, in the light of the experiments in local broadcasting two years ago which showed the potential of this medium in the field of education, if he will consult the Postmaster-General concerning the early setting up of a number of local broadcasting stations for educational purposes.

Mrs. White: asked the Minister of Education what co-operation is being offered by his Department in experiments in local sound broadcasting for educational purposes.

Sir E. Boyle: I would refer the hon. Members to the Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General to the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) on Thursday, 19th March.

Mr. Marsh: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are not asking him for the views of the Postmaster-General on local sound broadcasting as such, but for a statement on what he believes his Ministry's attitude ought to be to the educational aspect of local sound broadcasting? As it would be possible to set up these stations for a capital cost of less than £20,000 each, does he not think that this could make a big contribution? After three years since the B.B.C. first put up the suggestion, surely he has some view about whether he supports it.

Sir E. Boyle: As the hon. Gentleman's own supplementary question makes plain, technical considerations are involved and I cannot make a statement until my discussions with my right hon. Friend on the technical aspects are complete. We are considering a variety of proposals for experiments in educational broadcasting which, I agree, have important educational implications, but we must get the technical matters thrashed out first.

Mrs. White: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that there are certain experiments which could be carried out with existing stations without technical changes and that it is most desirable that, while he is carrying on with what may be lengthy discussions on new forms of local sound broadcasting, he should at least encourage the B.B.C. to proceed with what we are given to understand is now possible without making any technical changes whatsoever?

Sir E. Boyle: I was considering the technical implications of what is under discussion. I am very keen that we should make rapid progress in this matter and I hope that I or my successor will be able to make a statement on this subject before too long.

Mr. Marsh: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the B.B.C. is willing and able—it claims—to go ahead now with the formation of at least six local stations, which would be primarily concerned with educational activity, and even with schemes to provide extramural classes complementary to the actual broadcasting?

Sir E. Boyle: I cannot go further than I have this morning, but I take note of the feeling in the House and hope that it will be possible to make a statement on these matters before long.

Technical College, Sunderland

Mr. P. Williams: asked the Minister of Education when Sunderland's technical college will be recognised as a college of advanced technology.

Sir E. Boyle: I am fully aware of the progress made by the Sunderland Technical College, but in the light of

the Robbins Report the designation of another C.A.T. would not be possible, since this would imply, in effect, the designation of a new university.
The possible establishment of a new university in the North-East or elsewhere is a matter for consideration in due course by the University Grants Committee.

Mr. P. Williams: Will my right hon. Friend take it from me that this is still altogether unsatisfactory? The North-East has one college of advanced technology. Sunderland has the largest college of such a type in the country, nearly four times as big as one of the universities, and is providing courses of a very high standard. Is not this a decision which cannot go on being postponed, for postponement destroys the moral fibre of those who are teaching and working, in these colleges? Is not this something which needs urgent attention?

Sir E. Boyle: When I was last in the North-East, I explained fully, by all the media available to me, why, in the light of the Robbins Report, the designation of another C.A.T. would not be possible, and I was also careful to emphasise the large amount of first degree work being carried out at Sunderland and Rutherford College; and the Constantine College at Middlesbrough. The fact remains that at this moment it is not possible to designate another C.A.T.

Teachers (Saudi Arabia)

Mr. P. Williams: asked the Minister of Education what conversations he has had with the Saudi Arabian Government about the possible supply of English teachers to Saudi Arabia.

Sir E. Boyle: None, Sir.

Mr. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that people able to teach English are needed in Saudi Arabia? As that country is now looking to this country for friendship and support, is not this something in which my right hon. Friend's Ministry should take an initiative?

Sir E. Boyle: I refer my hon. Friend to an answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on 23rd March.

Adult Education

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Education, in view of the fact that recommendation 104 of the Robbins Committee stated that the work for adult education undertaken by extra-mural departments and the Workers Educational Association should be encouraged, if he is aware that his grant arrangements for 1964–65 are acting as a discouragement to the responsible bodies; and if he will take action to remedy this situation.

Sir E. Boyle: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. George Craddock) on 19th March.

Mr. Boyden: When the right hon. Gentleman goes around the country and meets responsible bodies and takes public meetings, he always says that this is an activity which it is very important to develop. Has he changed his mind, or is it just that his deeds do not match his words?

Sir E. Boyle: I have not changed my mind and there will not be a standstill on grants to responsible bodies next year. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, I regard the highest priority in this respect the building programme for long-term residential colleges, to which the hon. Gentleman rightly referred me last year. I made no apology for continuing to make that the first priority for the future. But we certainly cannot judge this over one single year. There was a definite step forward in the grants to the responsible bodies last year, and I hope that those concerned will not be too easily discouraged because they have not had a further increase in the number of tutors for the very next year.

Mr. Boyden: But surely the sum of money required to allow responsible bodies to go on naturally developing is very small, and there is now a check. As the Robbins Report makes a very strong recommendation that this work should be encouraged, surely the right hon. Gentleman should struggle a bit harder to get some more money.

Sir E, Boyle: I thought that the increase in money which I was proposing for this year was reasonable and a further increase in the number of tutors in the very next year was perhaps not

something this year to which I should give the highest priority. I must ask the House on this matter to look at this over a term of years. During the whole of this Parliament, the total grants for adult education have risen considerably.

Mr. Boyden: On a point of order. Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

School Places, Middlesbrough

Mr. Bottomley: asked the Minister of Education what steps he is taking to ensure that all five-year-old children in Middlesbrough will be able to start school in the term beginning at Easter.

Sir E. Boyle: The Middlesbrough local education authority assures me that all children who reach the age of five before the beginning of the summer term will be able to start school in that term.

Mr. Bottomley: Would the right hon. Gentleman accept from me that Middlesbrough Corporation is a progressive authority and that the education committee is anxious that the rising-fives should also have an opportunity of going to school, and that if he would cooperate, this could be done?

Sir E. Boyle: One must recognise that there is bound to be very great pressure on staffing standards in infant schools. It may be that a number of authorities who have hitherto done so would not find it possible to admit all the rising-fives. Middlesbrough will be able to meet its responsibilities for children of statutory school age and I hope that it will also be reasonably satisfied with the school building programme which will reach it shortly.

French-Speaking Teachers

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Education how many French-speaking assistants are currently teaching in English schools; how many are French, Belgian and Swiss, respectively; and how these numbers compare with those of the previous year.

Sir E. Boyle: 1,003 French speaking assistants are currently teaching in English and Welsh schools of whom three


are Swiss and the rest French. In 1962–63, there were 937, of whom six were Swiss, three Belgians and 928 French.

Mr. Boyden: No progress has been made in increasing the number of Belgian, French and Swiss assistants. Has the right hon. Gentleman done nothing to deal with the difficulties which I raised with his predecessor more than a couple of years ago? Is that why there has not been an increase in the number of Belgian and Swiss assistants?

Sir E. Boyle: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have made it known to both the Belgian and Swiss authorities that we would welcome candidates from their universities, but Belgian and Swiss universities apparently neither expect nor encourage undergraduates to spend a year in this country. There are difficulties and I have done my best about them.

Anti-Litter Campaign

Mr. Prentice: asked the Minister of Education what steps he is taking to see that the anti-litter campaign is supported in schools and colleges.

Sir E. Boyle: Schools and colleges are already aware of the importance of this matter, and I do not think that any special action is needed on my part.

Mr. Prentice: Could not the Ministry keep in touch rather more with the Keep Britain Tidy campaign to see if more could be done? Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that a walk down any high street would convince him or anybody else that most of our schoolchildren are set an appalling example by their parents in these matters? Would he not agree that schools could do more to make a major impact on the standard of cleanliness and tidiness both in our towns and countryside?

Sir E. Boyle: This is a matter which is best left to the schools and colleges and local education authorities. I was glad to see a recent article in The Times which said that there were now nearly 2,000 Keep Britain Tidy school committees, but this would not be a satisfactory subject for an educational circular.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that all the education in the

world will be of very little value unless local authorities provide receptacles for litter? Litter is to be seen lying all over the place, and particularly in stations, where people leave their tickets on the ground—but there are hardly any receptacles in which they can be placed, anyway. Will he consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government on the matter?

Mr. Speaker: It is not the responsibility of the Minister of Education to put litter bins in stations.

Mr. P. Williams: Does not my right hon. Friend think that perhaps the best thing to do would be to persuade Giles, the cartoonist, to lead a campaign?

Sir E. Boyle: I think that the best thing that we can do is to move on to the next Question.

Teachers

Mrs. White: asked the Minister of Education what arrangements are made to grant recognition to a teacher who is fully qualified, but who has obtained these qualifications by means of part-time study.

Sir E. Boyle: Generally speaking, university degrees and specialist qualifications acceptable for the award of qualified teacher status are so accepted whether taken through full-time or part-time study, but teacher-training qualifications are only accepted for this purpose if attained through full-time training. If the hon. Lady has any particular case in mind I shall be glad to discuss it with her. I am reviewing the justification for this limitation.

Mrs. White: I am glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman is reviewing his matter. Does not he agree that, as the Kelsall Report stresses so strongly, many women wish to take part-time work only in the teaching profession, and that it is quite illogical to put up an insuperable barrier by insisting on full-time training?

Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Lady is correct in saying that it was the Kelsall Report in particular that made me think that we should look at this matter again.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Vehicles, London Area (Licensing and Insurance)

Mr. Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that, after a five-week campaign, the police in West Ham ascertained that in the Forest Gate area alone there were 430 vehicles without licences or insurance or both; and whether, as the practice of using unlicensed vehicles and leaving them on the roads is growing, he will advise the Commissioner of Police in the Metropolitan area to initiate a London campaign similar to that just carried out in West Ham.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Henry Brooke): The cases which the hon. Member refers to came to light as a result of a review of standing vehicles which was considered necessary in the Forest Gate area. The Commissioner does not consider that a general review of this kind is necessary for the Metropolitan Police District as a whole, but special action is taken in particular areas when local circumstances make it necessary.
The Commissioner has suggested to local taxation authorities changes in the procedure for reporting unlicensed vehicles which he hopes will enable the police to increase the help they afford them.

Mr. Lewis: I congratulate the Forest Gate Police on the excellence of their activities, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are literally thousands of these derelict cars, vans and other vehicles, which have not only become eyesores but which are uninsured and untaxed? Is he further aware that children play about in them, and that there was recently a case of a child being killed in this way? Does not he think that if the law provides that these vehicles should be taxed and insured if they are on the road, the police ought to enforce the law? Will not he ask the police to consider this matter again in other areas, so that they can be as progressive as the police of West Ham?

Mr. Brooke: The police review in the Forest Gate area arose because of the large and recently much-increased num-

ber of vehicles left parked and unused. It was not primarily concerned with taxation and insurance matters I think that this is best left to the police. The Commissioner can, if he thinks fit, issue general directions to the forces, or he can leave it to local officers to take special action locally. I am grateful to the hon. Member for the congratulations that he has expressed to the police in the Forest Gate area.

Mr. Lipton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the police have to waste many hundreds, if not thousands, of valuable man-hours trying to trace the owners of these vehicles before they will authorise local authorities to take them away? In those circumstances, will he alter the present arrangements so that the necessary steps can be taken within a much shorter time to tow these vehicles off the streets?

Mr. Brooke: This is a large question As I said in my original Answer, the Commissioner has suggested to local taxation authorities certain changes in procedure for reporting unlicensed vehicles which will enable the police to give greater assistance to local authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions — MEMBERS

Mr. Diamond: asked the Prime Minister whether, to aid the deliberations of the Committee on Members' pay, he will institute an actuarial inquiry as to the expectation of life of Members of the House of Commons at ages 50, 55, 60 and 65 as compared with the average expectation at these several ages.

The Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): I think this is a matter for the Committee in the first instance.

Mr. Diamond: Is the Prime Minister aware that the 10 deaths of hon. Members which occurred recently, up to the time immediately before my putting down this Queston, were at the average age of 59? Is he further aware that five of those were Conservatives, and that they died at the average age of 57? Is he yet further aware that considerable pressure is put upon hon. Members and right hon. Members as a result of which, I believe, many hon. and right hon. Gentlemen are compelled to retire from this House at an early age—and that


if that were not the case neither the right hon. Gentleman himself nor my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) would be leading their respective parties at the forthcoming General Election? Finally, is he aware that all the indications are that it is the compulsion which is put upon most hon. Members to have to earn a living by doing two jobs which results in this unsatisfactory situation, and that they should at least all be paid a living wage?

The Prime Minister: I am aware of all these facts, and that we probably all work too hard. The hon. Member seems to have all the statistics for which he has asked me. Perhaps he will supply them to the Committee, instead of asking me to do so.

Mr. Fell: On a point of order. I know that the question of time-keeping is a very difficult one. I did not raise this point at the time, because I wanted to hear Big Ben strike—but you asked for Questions to the Prime Minister just before a quarter to twelve, Mr. Speaker. A very important Question, No. 38, would have been called otherwise. As we have now missed it, is it possible to do anything about it?

Mr. Speaker: It would not have been called, because the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) is not here.

Mr. Fell: He is.

Sir W. Teeling: rose—

Mr. Speaker: In that case, I apologise. But do not let us waste time about it. If I misread the clock it is usually to the general advantage that I should be allowed to do so.

Mr. Shinwell: On the original Question, has it occurred to the right hon Gentleman and to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) that if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen would live a simple and natural life they would live longer?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is a most splendid advertisement for what he is saying.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will my right hon. Friend consider recommending to the Committee this rather simple actuarial

survey, because it touches the question of the modernisation of Parliament? Undoubtedly the peculiar hours of work here have an effect on the lives of hon. Members in their fifties, as evidenced by the unfortunate illness of my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro).

The Prime Minister: If there are any statistics which the Committee wants and the Government can help, they will supply them.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED NATIONS (PEACE- KEEPING FORCE)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister, in view of his willingness to consider the matter with the allies, and of the recent official joint announcement by the three Scandinavian countries, if he will instruct the appropriate departments to prepare a plan for an allied force, not to be permanently under United Nations control, but to be available as needed to the United Nations for peace-keeping purposes.

The Prime Minister: As I explained to the House on 3rd March, it has not so far been considered appropriate for the permanent members of the Security Council to earmark forces for United Nations service and any departure on our part from this view would need to be discussed with our allies in the light of our existing commitments. An allied force for the United Nations is another matter, and I am doubtful whether it would be a suitable means of giving support.
However, we are giving further study to all these possibilities.

Mr. Henderson: Has not the Cyprus situation shown the danger caused by the vacuum that exists while the United Nations peace-keeping force is being organised? Is not there an overwhelming case for the creation of a United Nations stand-by force pending the creation of a permanent force? Will the Prime Minister indicate that, in principle, Her Majesty's Government are in agreement with the action taken by the Canadian and Scandinavian Governments, which have already undertaken to establish such stand-by forces?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. and learned Gentleman's supplementary question illustrates one of the difficulties. He asks whether we have prepared plans for an allied force. In the case of Cyprus, we were unable to collect an allied force, but even if we had been able it would not have been acceptable to a number of members of the United Nations. As for our own contribution, we would always be willing, provided we approved of the situation and of the United Nations resolution concerned, to provide forces to help, and we could do so expeditiously. We want to find the best means of doing this.

Mr. H. Wilson: I agree with what the Prime Minister has said, including the necessary proviso that we agree with the particular project and the situation, but does not he think that we might now go further in preparation and agree, in consultation with our allies, to earmark perhaps 2,000 or more of our troops at present in Germany for use for such peace-keeping purposes and to see that they get the necessary training—for example, by way of preparation in tropical hygiene and logistics, and so on, because in the case of the really serious problem that might arise at any time, we have a great deal to offer, including mobility, and we also have something in the nature of a command structure, which is usually the thing most deficient in United Nations operations.

The Prime Minister: I will certainly consider what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Of course, it is more difficult for a country like ours with worldwide commitments than for other countries to earmark specific battalions in particular places. We might want them in those places at the time when the United Nations wanted them, I think there will be no difficulty at all in finding necessary troops and getting them to the right places at the right time. I shall consider what he has said.

Sir J. Pitman: While welcoming very strongly what my right hon. Friend has said, may I ask that we should use some word not quite so strong as "earmark", which might apply to bases and facilities for such a force were it at any time to be required? What hon. Members on both sides of the House are asking for is that preparatory thinking should

go on about this. We do not necessarily want so many bodies put in a particular place as a requirement to do a great deal of initial thinking on what ought to be done.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I am in agreement with my hon. Friend and I think I am largely in agreement with the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson). It is a question of how to devise the best way of providing troops when necessary without tying ourselves down too closely to providing troops from a particular place at a particular time.

Mr. H. Wilson: We have many times in a more controversial atmosphere argued about the question of what we have sometimes called a "stage army". Does not the Prime Minister think that the particular proposal I have put to him related to Germany, provided our allies will agree, might be a more helpful way of doing it than by having to rely on a very small, almost non-existent, strategic reserve kept in this country?

The Prime Minister: It could be, but I do not think I should like to commit myself today to saying that we should earmark particular troops in a particular place for a particular purpose. I should like to give this further consideration because, in the event, it might prove embarrassing to this country.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTER OF PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS (SPEECH)

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech of the Minister of Public Building and Works in London on 10th March on the subject of the National Economic Development Council represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend's remarks at a Press conference on 10th March dealing with other matters related to a report on the Construction Industry presented to the National Economic Development Council by its Director-General. My right hon. Friend developed his views in a speech representing Government policy in the debate on the building industry on 17th March.

Mr. Wyatt: Is not this a very odd situation? A very important body, of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is chairman, approves and publishes a carefully prepared report making strong criticisms of the building industry. The Minister of Public Building and Works says that most of the criticisms are a lot of nonsense. Does the Prime Minister realise that if he agrees with the Minister of Public Building and Works he repudiates the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Should he not try to find out about it and which of his right hon. Friends is talking through his hat?

The Prime Minister: I have found out everything about it. I read my right hon. Friend's speech on that occasion and also his speech to this House at a later time. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works was simply saying that he did not agree with every aspect of the report. In particular, he said that the extent to which industrialised building systems were already being used for local authority housing and school building had not been taken sufficiently into account because he thought the report had been made too early.

Mr. H. Wilson: Will the Prime Minister say whether the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in presiding over this body and issuing the document represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government?

The Prime Minister: The document was a commentary. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman knows this. It was a report by the Director-General to N.E.D.C. In this report there were certain criticisms made of the building construction industry. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works was perfectly entitled to say, if he thought certain facts were not available to the Council, that he thought it ought to have had those facts before it reported.

Mr. Wyatt: Does not the Prime Minister realise that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was there when this report was approved and there was a junior Minister from the Ministry of Public Building and Works there who did not disagree? The report was published and later repudiated by the Minister of

Public Building and Works. The Prime Minister seems to be on his side. He will have to make his peace with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. What is he going to do about that?

The Prime Minister: My peace is already made with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is no trouble there.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMON WEALTH IMMIGRANTS

Mr. Taverne: asked the Prime Minister what arrangements he has made to co-ordinate the work of the Ministers of Housing and Labour and of the Secretary for State for the Home Department on integrating Commonwealth immigrants into the economic and social life of the country.

The Prime Minister: There is regular consultation between the Ministers concerned with the administration of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act and with the welfare of Commonwealth immigrants.

Mr. Taverne: Am I to understand that, at any rate, the Government accept the principle of integration? I understand that to be the position. It so, does the Prime Minister realise that he can make a very considerable contribution to the question? Will he publicly condemn those local bodies and parties which oppose integration and seek to use racial tension for political purposes? Since he has been challenged on television by the Leader of the Opposition and since the Conservative Party's Parliamentary West Indies Committee made its position plain, will he state clearly, as I am sure he would wish to do, what is his attitude to campaigns like those waged by the Conservatives in Smethwick?

The Prime Minister: I think I should ignore the last part of that supplementary question—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] It is making an accusation which is quite unwarranted. In response to the first part of the question, of course we have never condoned but absolutely condemn any racial discrimination by any public body or private individual.

Mr. H. Wilson: Is the Prime Minister aware that all of us applaud the statement issued by the Conservative leaders


of the West Indies Committee, but he must face the fact that certain very damaging and degrading statements remain on record in the columns of The Times? Does he recognise his responsibility to repudiate statements made in the name of his party which will do the greatest disservice to the public life of this country?

The Prime Minister: I speak on behalf of the whole party when I say that there is no question that we condemn racial discrimination in any form.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Will the Prime Minister consider joining my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal Party in issuing a joint statement from all parties deprecating bringing racial problems into the General Election?

The Prime Minister: We all deprecate it, I think separately and all together. We all deprecate this matter, I hope.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND

Mr. Brockway: asked the Prime Minister what co-ordination he proposes between the Ministers concerned to provide the housing, schools, hospitals and transport required by the findings of the report on the future of South-East England and to prevent the rise of land values due to the proposed community development.

Mr. Prentice: asked the Prime Minister what steps he is taking to coordinate the plans of the ministers concerned with providing the additional housing, transport and social services that will be required to meet the needs of the large increase in the population of South-East England forecast by the recent Report.

Mr. Lipton: asked the Prime Minister to what extent he is coordinating the plans of the Ministers concerned with the further housing, schools, hospitals and other services that will be needed when the Report on South-East England is carried out.

The Prime Minister: The Ministers concerned will co-ordinate these matters through the existing machinery of Government.

Mr. Brockway: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that to be enough? Are not five Ministries very intimately concerned? Is he aware of the housing shortage, the condemned schools in rural areas, waiting lists for hospitals, suffocation in trains, queues for buses and soaring land prices? Will not this become intensified by the South-East Plan unless there is effective integration of the Ministries?

The Prime Minister: My Answer was that there is the necessary integration. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already announced the setting up of a steering group to advise Ministers on this. When necessary the Ministers may see that action is coordinated.

Mr. Prentice: Will the Prime Minister say why the Government have accepted the defeatist assumption that all the problems to which my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) referred are to be further aggravated by a further migration of over 1 million people to the South-East before 1981? The Government have rightly accepted the idea that London itself should have growth restraint, and there must be growth elsewhere and big public investment. Why cannot it take place in areas such as Scotland and the North-East where it is needed instead of in areas like Newbury where people do not want it?

The Prime Minister: Our regional policies are designed just for this purpose, to help people to stay and work in those areas, but we cannot stop people coming to these areas if they want to do so.

Mr. Lipton: In view of the thousands of homeless and the rocketing land prices in London and the South-East, will the Prime Minister do something to encourage emigration from the South-Eastern to the under-developed. Under-populated and backward areas to be found in many parts of the country, such as Perthshire and Kinross? Let us have some emigration from the South-East to the Prime Minister's constituency.

The Prime Minister: Yesterday we sent the Post Office to Glasgow. That is the beginning. I will consider what


I might do about Kinross and West Perthshire, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman himself will stay away.

Mr. P. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those of us from the North-East Coast of England welcome the wisdom of the Government in planning for the next 20 years' development in the South-East? Will he give publicity to the statements of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) and the ex-citizen of Sunderland, the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), in advising the nation of the squalor of the South-East and the advantages of the North-East?

UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES OF ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY (STAFF REMUNERATION)

12.1 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and the Minister for Science (Mr. Quintin Hogg): With permission, I wish to make a statement about the Report of the National Incomes Commission on the remuneration of Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges of Advanced Technology, which was published yesterday.
I do so in view of the importance which the Government attach to progress with university expansion and the recommendation of the Commission that the salary rates it proposes should come into operation from 1st April next. Certain points in the Report will need to be pursued in detail, which will take time, but the Government wish to make their attitude to the main issues clear at once.
The Commission reaffirms that the fundamental principle of an incomes policy is to keep the rate of increase in aggregate money incomes within the long-term rate of increase of national production. It recognises, however, that, within this principle, particular cases may be established where a long-term change in the relativities of remuneration is desirable on economic grounds. It is satisfied that over the years there has been a decline in the relative position of university salaries, and that this decline is having undesirable consequences and should be corrected. The Commission has accordingly recom-

mended new salary rates for non-medical and pre-clinical staff to take effect from 1st April this year.
The Government, for their part, accept in principle the findings of the Commission. In particular, after consultation with the University Grants Committee, they accept the recommendations in respect of salary rates and allowances. They agree with the Commission that this is a genuine case for special treatment in terms of income policy. For the reasons given in the Report, therefore, this decision should not be regarded as having any bearing on other occupations.
So far as universities are concerned, the implementation of the recommendations on salaries and allowances is a matter for the institutions in consultation with the University Grants Committee. For colleges of advanced technology, assimilation to the university grading structure and salary rates will be the subject of early discussions between the Ministry of Education, the University Grants Committee, the colleges and their staffs, within the broad principles recommended by the Commission.
The Government will ask Parliament to provide additions to the recurrent grants for universities for the rest of the quinquennium and to the grants to colleges of advanced technology to enable the new rates to operate from 1st April, 1964. Supplementary funds provisionally estimated at £7 million will be required for the coming financial year.
The Government and, I am sure, the whole House, are grateful to the Commission for the work it has done and for its lucid and authoritative Report.

Mr. Crossman: We welcome the Government's decision to accept the Commission's findings and gladly join the right hon. and learned Gentleman in congratulating the Commission on its lucid Report. May I put two questions to the Minister? First, will he tell us how the new amounts conceded compare with what was turned down in 1962 when the Government turned down the requirements of the University Grants Committee? Secondly, will he amplify his statement that the decision should not be regarded as having any bearing


on other occupations? Would he include among those other occupations, for instance, the teaching profession?
Would it not be slightly unrealistic to do that, unless he regards this as restoring a proper differential between university staffs and teachers? Would he let us know whether he thinks that is true, or does he think that the teachers could legitimately consider this in preparing their claim which they are now doing?

Mr. Hogg: I could not, without notice, say what relationship the findings of the Commission have to the 1962 figures. I am not even sure that the 1962 figures have ever been published.
As regards the teaching profession, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to go behind the Burnham machinery.

Hon. Members: The Government did.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I very much welcome the announcement that my right hon. and learned Friend has made. Would he say whether the aim now is that the institutions should try to aim at uniform increases or at uniform total amounts? Does he visualise there being a clear distinction between the increases to colleges of advanced technology and those to universities?

Mr. Hogg: I must apologise to my hon. Friend. I am not absolutely sure that I caught the bearing of his question. I think that the point about colleges of advanced technology is covered by my statement and by the proposals in the Robbins Report. I do not think that I sufficiently understood what my hon. Friend was referring to to enable me to answer the first part of his question.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: May I try again? Is my right hon. and learned Friend aiming at uniform increases or at a uniform amount for each type of increase?

Mr. Hogg: I think that the new rates are published at the end of the Report, but within them there is a certain element of flexibility.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that the whole country will welcome not only the announcement he has made, but his recognition of the importance of education in the national economy? In view of what he has said, may I suggest that it would be a very good thing if he followed this announcement by restoring to the Burnham Committee's negotiated salaries for teachers the cuts which his right hon. Friend the Minister recently made?

Mr. Hogg: I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for the first part of his question. Questions regarding the Burnham Committee are still for my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that these new grades compare very favourably with those in operation in many other democratic countries?

Mr. Hogg: Yes, I think so.

Mr. Shinwell: I am sure that nobody in the House would wish to deprive those associated with university education of reasonable salaries and improved remuneration, but does not this proposal make a farce of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has described as a national incomes policy if there is to be a reservation which provides for a differential which is applicable to only one section of society? What about all those differentials that exist among other classes in the community—teachers, nurses, and the general body of workers? Are we to understand that this is to be the new conception of a national incomes policy?

Mr. Hogg: If the right hon. Gentleman will read the Report he will see that that kind of argument is very fully dealt with, but I must remind the House that one of the main purposes of the National Incomes Commission—as the Commission recalls in the Report—was to deal with cases of revaluation where a particular occupation required it.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must not too much compact our programme of Adjournment debates.

CASES OF HALLORAN AND COX; TISDALL, KINGSTON AND BURTON

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Henry Brooke): With permission, I would like to make a statement about the cases of Halloran and Cox; and Tisdall, Kingston and Burton.
During the proceedings in Standing Committee on the Police Bill on 13th February the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) referred to a case in which two constituents of his named Halloran and Cox had alleged that they had been ill-treated after they had been taken into custody by the Metropolitan Police. The hon. Member referred to a police investigation of these allegations ordered by my predecessor, and stated that certain evidence had been suppressed and not sent to the Home Secretary.
In subsequent correspondence with me the hon. Member has referred to statements made to him by present and former senior officers of the Metropolitan Police asserting that in the course of inquiries which have been made, for the information of the Home Secretary, in this and in another case which occurred at Hornsey involving three men named Tisdall, Kingston and Burton, action has been taken designed deliberately to mislead the Home Secretary by suppressing information and by directing the preparation of "whitewashing" reports.
While I am not to be taken as accepting the statements that have been made, these are matters of such gravity that, in my view, they must be the subject of an impartial investigation. Until the Police Bill becomes law I have no power to set up a statutory inquiry in which there would be power to summon witnesses and take evidence on oath.
I have, therefore, decided to set up a non-statutory inquiry by an independent person—as in the recent Woolf case—into the question whether there has been a breach of duty on the part of anyone concerned in any of the inquiries which have been made into these two cases for the information of the Secretary of State.
I have invited Mr. W. L. Mars-Jones, Q.C., to conduct the inquiry, and he has

agreed to do so. The secretary will be Mr. J. Nursaw, of the Home Office Legal Adviser's Department.
An inquiry of this character conducted without statutory powers must be held in private, but it is my intention to publish the report.
Although there will be no statutory power to summon witnesses, the Commissioner of Police is satisfied that all the serving police officers who took any part in the matters under inquiry will give evidence, and any of my own officers who were concerned will, of course, do so.
In these circumstances, I hope and trust that the senior police officers and former senior police officers who have made the statements I have referred to, and who claim to have personal knowledge of these matters, will also consider that it is their duty to come forward and give evidence at the inquiry.

Mr. Fletcher: I need hardly say that I welcome, the statement which the right hon. Gentleman has made. Indeed, I think that he had no alternative but to order an impartial investigation. I only regret that this step was not taken when I first raised this matter with his predecessor as long as five years ago.
There are a few questions I would like to put to the right hon. Gentleman arising out of his statement. First, I share his wish that although this is to be an extra-statutory inquiry, the senior police officers who hitherto have given me confidential information will be prepared to give evidence at this inquiry. However, I must ask the Home Secretary for an assurance that if they do so, as it is my hope, none of them will be in any way victimised or penalised for giving information which may reflect on some of their superiors in the force.
Secondly, will he confirm that the terms of reference of the inquiry will be sufficiently wide to enable the distinguished Queen's Counsel to examine not only the handling of the matter, but the actual occurrence?
Thirdly, I must repeat the request I have made to the Home Secretary; to let me see copies of the two conflicting reports which were made to his predecessor. I think that the House would also wish to have an assurance that all the documents in the possession of the


Home Office will be produced and that there will be no question of any claim for Crown privilege being raised by the Home Secretary.
Fourthly, I am wondering whether it is wise for Mr. Nursaw, whom I do not know but who, I have no doubt, is an admirable civil servant, to be the secretary of the inquiry, bearing in mind that it may be rather embarrassing to him since the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor and members of the staff of the Home Office may be involved.

Mr. Brooke: In reply to the hon. Gentleman's fourth point, I do not think that the conduct of my predecessor is in question here. Certainly, the conduct of certain people in the Home Office may be in question, and I had considered the point that the hon. Member has raised, It seemed to me that the appropriate action would be that somebody in the Legal Adviser's Department of the Home Office should act as secretary of the inquiry. It will be Mr. Mars-Jones, who will be in full control of the proceedings.
I can assure the hon. Member, in answer to his question about information, that all the relevant Home Office and Metropolitan Police papers will be made available to the inquiry. There is no question of Crown privilege here, because it is not a court of law. It would not be proper for me to make those two reports available either to the hon. Member or anyone else. They should be made available to Mr. Mars-Jones and he will then consider the proper procedure.
As to the terms of reference, the inquiry is into the handling of the investigation and whether there was a breach of duty on the part of anybody concerned, rather than into the actual occurrences. I should have thought that it would be impossible to rule out all references to the actual occurrences being investigated, but it will be for the distinguished silk conducting the inquiry to say what in his view is relevant and what is not.
I have received assurances from the Commissioner of Police that disciplinary action will not be taken against any serving officer who gives evidence and that no action will be proposed against any retired officer on that ground, or on the ground that he has supplied information to the hon. Member or any other hon. Member.

Mr. Paget: What arrangements are being made for the legal representation of the complainants, that is, those who are criticising the position which is taken, and what funds will be made available for them to present their case?

Mr. Brooke: There are no complainants in the ordinary sense and I would not think that this was a case where legal representation would be needful. However, it would be for Mr. Mars-Jones to reach decisions on that if he is asked.

Mr. Fletcher: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that it will be within the discretion of Mr. Mars-Jones, if he thinks that it is necessary, to enable persons attending the inquiry to see and comment on the two conflicting reports which are very much involved in this case?

Mr. Brooke: Yes, it will certainly be within his discretion.

BILL PRESENTED

DRUGS (PREVENTION OF MISUSE)

Bill to penalize the possession, and restrict the importation, of drugs of certain kinds, presented by Mr. Brooke; supported by Mr. Noble, Mr. Anthony Barber, Mr. Woodhouse, and Miss Mervyn Pike; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday, 7th April and to be printed. [Bill. 122.]

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]

Initial Teaching Alphabet

12.19 p.m.

Sir James Pitman: This is a sad occasion in as much as it is the last time that the Minister of Education will be addressing us in that capacity. It is very happy that his swansong is about education and not about the administration of education and that it is on the subject of learning to read which—I am tempted to go much further—is the most important foundation of the whole of our education and social structure.
My right hon. Friend has been, I think, an outstanding Minister of Education, and one of the ways in which he has been so outstanding is in making it quite clear where his heart lies and in which direction he wishes to channel the great gifts which he has had from a brilliant university record. He has rightly enjoyed a corresponding affection from, I believe, both sides of the House.
That channel has been the lower rungs, and in wishing him well in his move to his new responsibilities for the higher rungs, may we commend to him the London University Institute of Education and the National Foundation for Educational Research. In a Question the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. M. Rees) raised some very pertinent points. We may ask my right hon. Friend to bring to his new job a consideration of how exetremely fruitful, in this field of education, such a research can be.
In another way it is sad that Dr. Mont Follick is not alive to be with us today. If ever there were justification for Private Members' Bills and for the initiative of private Members in the House, it centres around him and what we discuss today. On 22nd August, 1945, within nine days of becoming a Member of Parliament, he had made his maiden speech on this subject. On 11th March, 1949, he introduced the first of his spelling Bills. On 6th March, 1952, he found it within the terms of order to discuss this subject in connection with the Navy Estimates. On 27th February, 1953, he introduced a Bill which was directed exactly and precisely to everything which has happened since then.
In addition, Parliament as a whole has played a very important part in

what has been discovered. The status of a Member of Parliament is very important in this matter. This is a subject in which people either listen to and scoff or just scoff so much that they do not even listen. I should like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) for his help in eliminating the scatterbrain, wild-man idea on this subject which, had it continued, would have meant that the new medium was doomed to disaster. The honour of being a Member of Parliament has added that degree of respectability to the idea which was necessary to command attention and consideration and [n the end a willingness no longer to argue interminably but to make trial.
The House has in other respects, too, played a great part in what has come about. So have individuals. I am glad to see the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp) in his place for it allows me to draw attention to the individual effort and most valuable contribution of the Director of Education for Oldham, Mr. Maurice Harrison. Many people outside the House, including other directors of education, head teachers, class teachers and members of the inspectorate at the Ministry of Education, have all played an essential part. I am glad to see the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) present; in his authority, in Staffordshire, and in Harrow, and in many other places people have played their parts as private individuals also.
May I show what has been achieved by this pioneering? In the first place, the initial teaching alphabet has become now sufficiently established that it is recognised that it is not fair on the really young child to confront him with the full difficulties of our traditional orthography, when he first goes to school. In consequence, the onus of proof has changed. It is no longer upon the hon. Member for Itchen and myself to show that it is better to have a new medium than to continue with the old medium for the beginning child. May I emphasise that it is not a new method of teaching; it is a new medium of teaching. Everything which has been good about teaching methods at any time continues to be good now. Indeed, it


is better now, because there is no longer conflict between the look-and-say method and the phonic method. Each is stronger and each supplements the other.
In this, we have established that, unfortunately, three major millstones are placed around the neck of the child when he begins to learn to read. The first millstone concerns the variety of the word patterns which we require him to learn. Let us take the simple, indefinite article "A". At the beginning of the sentence it is like a wigwam with a lintel across the top. In the middle of a sentence the child has to cope with quite a different form, "a" something like a serpent with a very big tummy underneath.
Suddenly, however, when the teacher writes it on the board, or the child writes it in his own book, he is expected to write something like an "O" with a fishhook hanging down on the right-hand side namely, "a". There are thus three quite different forms and not one stable form. In every word in the English language the child is confronted with a different form for what in his own speech is only one form. I know only one word—and that is "O", and only then if we spell it without an "h"—in which there is not more than one form for every word.
I have looked carefully through Book I of a very popular beginning series. At that stage there are only 49 words. But it is peppered with changes in form. For instance, there are four forms for the word "and". Admittedly, one is the ampersand on the title page. There are two forms for the word "the", one at the beginning of the sentence and the other later in the sentence and so on, for many of these words, making them far more than 49 different visual patterns. The onus of proof surely is on those expert in education to justify why there should be such flagrant violation of one of the main teaching principles in any subject, particularly in a skill subject, such as reading. They need now to show why such fundamental teaching principles can be thus violated with impunity.
The second millstone round their little necks is that in so far as we have an alphabet—and are not as unfortunate

as the Chinese—we need at the very outset to confront the child with up to six values for a single character. Let us take the letter "A" as we should normally describe it. In "canyon" it has one value; but we do not say "anny" and "many" but "any" and "many". In "pants" it represents the standard value but in "wants" another. In "Janet" it represents the standard sound but in "Jane" it has yet a third value. In "shall" it has the normal value but in "pall" it has another and fourth value. In "Halma" and "palm" it has yet another and fifth value additional to its most normal value. How should we manage teaching a small child mathematics if the figure 6 did not stand always for 6 but sometimes for 7, sometimes for 8, and possibly now and again for 3 and 1?
The third millstone is the number of variants which we have in our spelling. There are 22 or, if we count capital letters, over 100 spellings for the sound "ie" in "die" and in the book which I mentioned four of these different 22 spellings are presented to the child amongst the first 20 words which are brought in. There is a capital "I" for the "I" which the child has to read. There is the "i"—consonant—"e" of "ride". My is "my" but we spell "goodbye" with a final "e" and it is not long before "high" is introduced. Would numbers be very easy for the child if six were represented not only by "6" and "VI" but by 20 other symbols?
Of the 49 words in Book I, only 17 do not violate the two main principles of good teaching; 32 present great difficulty to the beginning child. Are we not entitled to ask those who would wish to confront the beginning child with these unnecessary difficulties to propound reasons why these difficulties should not be postponed and should not rather be presented only when the child has become proficient with the most simple—that is to say with only one form for each word, only one value for each character, and enough characters to represent the 40 sounds of English, so that all these three mill-stones may be removed? It is not only that the onus of proof has been reversed in respect of these three milestones, but that there is now a large amount of fact to support these a fortiori expectations.
There are, in particular, three apparent miracles. The first is that we have found that children do learn to read extraordinarily quickly. People did not believe it at the beginning, but it seems to be as easy as rolling off a log for the very young child who is sufficiently linguistic in speech. Very early in their school careers very young children thus derive real joy from reading.
The second apparent miracle is that the transition is literally a matter of minutes. Once they have learned to read fluently the children can put down an I.T.A. book and take up another book, printed in the ordinary way, and read it just as fast and with just as much comprehension. It may sound incredible, but those are the facts.
The third great apparent miracle is that the medium chosen is not dependent on the speech habits of any particular region. The spellings and alphabet have been tried in England, Scotland, and Wales, and in Ireland. It is now being tried with many young children in America and, if with small numbers, also in Canada and Australia. It amazes me every time I go into a school at, say, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to recognise with what perfect American accents these little six-year old children read their I.T.A. reading books, which, of course, children in Scotland and Wales read with a Scotch and Welsh accent; because, of course, they recognise from the print the words which they would use in their ordinary speech and thus give them all their own regional and indeed individual pronunciations.
These three a priori considerations and these three apparent miracles have combined to bring about certain facts. First, we have undoubtedly 200 per cent. better results in classes at the end of the two years of schooling. That is to say, at the end of the infants school and the beginning of the junior school. We have 61·4 per cent. of the original starters who get into the top two categories as distinct from only 20·5 in the control classes. That is a very big improvement—as much as 40 per cent. of those learning to read. If we compare it with the results in Kent, a corresponding figure of 75·8 per cent. for the I.T.A. in top three categories is matched by only 54·4 per cent., even in Kent an improvement of 21·4 per cent. There is thus a large proportion,

some 21 per cent. of all the children beginning to learn, who are brought into the top three categories of reading ability. The improvement over Kent is even better than 21 per cent., because 30·4 per cent. of these little children and 57·6 per cent, of them had been in the top category of all and in the three top categories respectively, and thus reading fluently, for half a year before the end of that second year.
What is the meaning of these figures in terms of human lives? If we take 30 per cent. which is a good mean between 40 per cent. and 21 per cent., particular y when we know that the standards at any such stage are so much higher in comprehension, we find that it means hat out of 800,000 children a year beginning to learn to read, 240,000, nearly a quarter of a million, young children more every year will be able to get real joy from reading at least a year earlier and will proceed up the educational ladder with fluent reading and comprehension and considerable linguistic attainment. There are 6 million children in the English-speaking world which means that about 1,800,000 children every year will be enabled to go forward socially and educationally with this wonderful gift of communication. The remedial aspect is very important, too. It is very warming to the heart to go into a remedial teaching group. The lost sheep is very warming to the heart of the shepherd. Spread over the 10-year intake we have in this country about 2 million of our children in schools who will benefit, no doubt greatly, from remedial teaching in reading. That figure goes up probably to about 20 million for the English-speaking world. Here is a further field of magnificent promise.
I urge the Minister to ask his successor to go into the classrooms and have a look at these children both in initial teaching and in remedial classes. That is very much like asking the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—if there is some land which is starved of lime and phosphates—to go to see it where an experiment has been conducted, in which there are parallel pieces of ground, upon half of which the fertilisers have been applied and upon the adjoining ha lf have not. One has only to go into a class and look


at the children to see the immense difference, and the reality of facts which appear so colourless when they are presented as figures.
Of course, the research is not yet completed and will not be until 1974 when the final intake has been through to puberty and all the final assessments of emotion and of other personal characteristics can be made. But the question arises: at what point does one accept the results of these researches and act upon them administratively? I urge the Minister to follow the good example of the 36 authorities which are accepting the facts as they see them in their own areas. They, after all, have the opportunity to see what has been done and have experienced the benefits to their children—and teachers.
Dr. Mont Follick had the foreigner in mind even more than the small English child. That is a further tremendously important point, the question of English as a foreign language. I hope that the Minister will urge upon his colleagues—I believe that, primarily, it is his responsibility—the need for something to happen about this at the Commonwealth Education Conference in Ottawa in August; and, also, he should enter into conversations with America, Ireland and South Africa, where the English language is as much indigenous as in Canada and Australia and where the teaching of English is also a practical problem. This urging of the Minister is to recognise that here is an issue of world leadership.
This is a medium, too, through which the deaf may be assisted. Already, in Oldham, most promising results are being achieved and there is a possibility of amending Braille to make easier the teaching of reading to the blind.
All this has, inevitably, in the circumstances, been done by private enterprise, not by Government. Ministers could not "go out on a limb" and be seen to be as "crackpot" as the hon. Member for Itchen and I have allowed ourselves to be considered. I have a copyright in this which I have given to the world as a whole, on condition that there shall be a standard which shall be conformed to both in the characters and in alphabet. Nothing could be worse for a child's education than that, if its parents

moved to another area there were, to be found as in Heinz soups a different one of "57 different varieties" with which the child would suddenly have to familiarise himself. I suggest that here is a matter of national significance, and I urge the Minister to take up the point that a national and world convention is a matter for this country's Government, not for an individual.
My right hon. Friend should, I suggest, also deal with the Home Office in relation to prisons, borstals and remand homes where remedial teaching will prove most beneficial. The Colonial Office, the Commonwealth Office, and the British Council are interested in English as a second language. Even the Army is involved in respect of the Army's School of Preliminary Education. The Ministry of Labour, in retraining, ought to he involved. I urge the Minister with his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to consider, whether it is not right that some national machinery should be set up to take over, where private enterprise ought no longer be required to operate alone.

12.38 p.m.

Dr. Horace King: The House has already warmly congratulated the hon. Member for Bath (Sir J. Pitman) on his successful achievement. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would be the first to declare his indebtedness to those who have worked in the field—eminent phoneticians like Dr. Daniel Jones, and education administrators, like Sir Graham Savage, and Maurice Harrison, Director of Education at Oldham, who have played such a great part—and to those who have worked before him, men like his own grandfather and William Archer.
I wish to say a word or two about the principles behind what we are debating. One of the most important discoveries made by man was the alphabet. Man found that though he had learned to articulate many words they actually consisted of very few sounds. So he invented signs for the sounds and thereupon both reading and writing became easy. Once a person had mastered the handful of signs and could say a word he could write it, and as


soon as he could read a word he could say it.
English is the richest language in the world. It has robbed other languages to create its enormous vocabulary of nearly half a million words. Its grammar has become, as we say, almost noiseless for inflectional endings have almost disappeared. It is the unique history of the British people which has done all this. That unique history, however, has also removed English spelling and the English alphabet miles away from that simple purpose of the alphabet which I have just mentioned.
I have no time to explain in detail why our spelling is so crazy, but I should like to make two important points. The conquest of the Anglo-Saxons by the Normans, on the one hand, and the fact that speech goes on changing while the printed word remains fixed account for the fact that much of the divergence between English spelling and English speech occurs not in the hard words, but in the easy ones—the words which the simple Saxons spoke and the equally simple Norman scribes tried to write down when they could not even say them. These words are so commonly used that they have changed constantly in pronunciation ion while the writing has remained fixed.
It is against that background that throughout the years reformers have been led to certain a priori conclusions, especially concerning children. One was that it seemed that if children were taught to read by means of an alphabet which conformed to the original purpose of all alphabets, and if they were not faced with all the difficulties and illogicalities of traditional spelling, a number of benefits might flow. First, and obviously, they might learn more easily and swiftly. I am not making a plea for easiness or laziness. Education is a tough process. I believe in hard work and discipline. But there is no virtue in mere difficulty as such. If, however, reading were easier to learn, the energy devoted to its former difficulties would be released to be used for something else. I hope to show later how this has been proved true by experimental research.
Moreover, some children find it difficult to get over the hurdle of learning to read at all. Some fail entirely. Certainly, many fail to achieve less than a com-

potence, and fail to achieve that reading with the ease and fluency which will make them eager to continue to read after they have left school. Some of us therefore thought that if reading were made easier to learn, we might help many backward readers and even some of the hard core who at present leave school unable to read, a hart core, incidentally—the Minister and I are both proud of this—which is steadily being reduced each year by the skill of teachers.
There is a correlation—not absolute, but certainly present—between illiteracy and delinquency. Every educator will confirm that a child needs to succeed. Every good teacher sets a child a goal which is within his grasp. Failure is frustrating and frustration itself does immense harm to a child. If then we could remove the frustration caused by the complexities of our alphabet, we might solve the difficulty of some of our problem children.
Even accepting those arguments, however, we were worried about the problem of transition—whether a child, having been taught to read in an alphabet without pitfalls and irregularities, might be confused when he came to tackle traditional spelling. If this were true, then all the gains which I have just mentioned might late be thrown away at the transition stage and we should be back where we started. All this we had to investigate.
The signal contribution of the hon. Member for Bath was to devise what he called an augmented alphabet—one using all the letters of the present alphabet plus a number of created signs or sounds which could not be represented by the alphabet, so that each sign meant one sound and one sound meant one sign. When devising what is now called I.T.A.—the Initial Teaching Alphabet—he always h id in mind two goals—one making it easier for a child to learn to read, aid the other, once reading had been acquired, the inevitable transition from I.T.A. to the complexities of ordinary English spelling. This was ingeniously done in his alphabet although I have no time now to explain just how.
It is worth underlining what the hon. Member has just said, namely, that he generously gave this alphabet to the world—to the universities first—and,


indeed, his only financial interest in the scheme has been purely negative. It has cost him money rather than made him money. That fact is worth emphasising and is a tribute to the selflessness of his labours.
Behind this research has been a vast labour of scholarship and scientific assessment, of gaining the support of the teaching profession, local education authorities and parents—not of the children, for they were enthusiastic from the start. It was necessary to convince local education authorities that this was not a gimmick or a stunt; to convince parents that they were risking nothing and that the basis of this experiment was sound; and to enlist the good will and co-operation of the skilled teachers in the infants' schools. All these things have been done.
I would here pay tribute to the local authorities of Oldham, Stoke, Walsall, Harrow and Burton, to mention just a few, for their fine co-operation, and especially to the primary teachers who have been the pivot of this experiment. It was necessary that we should not just launch the scheme haphazardly, with massive attempts by enthusiasists all over the country to teach children by I.T.A. The research had to be scientifically planned. Groups had to be matched, of children of similar abilities and similar circumstances, one to be taught using the new instrument and one with the old. Teachers had to be similarly matched, as far as possible, so that one was comparing like with like. If, as a television critic suggested last week, I.T.A. teachers were enthusiastic, so were those teachers of traditional orthography who were defending skills of which they were very proud indeed.
It would be foolish to say that we need I.T.A. because teachers have failed to teach reading. Everybody in this Chamber is living evidence of the fact that some years ago some skilled infants' teacher introduced us to the wonder of reading, in spite of the complexities. Year by year, even with traditional spelling, our triumphs over illiteracy increase. It would be foolish for the universities or for the Minister to attempt to dictate a method to teachers. This is no method. It is an instrument. Every successful infants'

teacher is an eclectic. Any good infants' teacher selects her own method from the various schemes, takes bits of each and adds to them her own genius and personality. But whatever the teacher's method, this method can be applied to the new instrument, I.T.A., or to the old alphabet.
The experiment has now continued for three years. I should now like to give the bare facts of its results, as found statistically, by scientific method. Children make faster progress when taught to read by I.T.A. The transition presents no problem. Children who have learnt by I.T.A., when they move over to ordinary reading, show "very superior accuracy and comprehension and speed in reading." I would add, from my own observation and from reports from teachers and education officers, that the by-products of I.T.A. seem to be a release of energy and a hunger for reading. Children read many more books. They enjoy reading more; and already—and this is something we had not thought of before—they display an earlier creative activity in writing essays and the like.
Teachers who use I.T.A. are convinced that it does what we believed it would do. The best judges of any teaching experiment are the experienced teachers. From Walsall, we also have evidence of its beneficial effect in remedial teaching of children, to help older children of 12 and 13 who have failed to read at earlier ages.
The Minister was right last Thursday when he said that it would be wrong to claim too much from this limited experiment, but only prejudiced persons would now say that substantial evidence has not been produced of the supreme educational value of the initial teaching alphabet.
I congratulate the Minister on the support which he is now giving to the project. This, as has been said, is the right hon. Gentleman's last debate in his present responsibility. He and I have crossed swords frequently in the House, but he has from me, as from every hon. and right hon. Member, tremendous esteem and respect. I do not think that he is translated to a higher sphere when he goes to the university side of education. I believe that it is a great pity that he has left the schools of England for


the universities, because, however noble the superstructure, it depends upon the work in our primary schools.
The right hon. Gentleman's contribution in that field has been outstanding. I think that when he looks back he that he helped, by official recognition, will remember with some satisfaction to give to primary education an instrument which may be of inestimable value in opening doors for some children to this great boon of reading, and which may for many more make the acquiring of this precious gift less irksome than it has been hitherto. There is nothing now to stop local education authorities, or interested teachers, from making full use of what research has shown can be of tremendous value in the teaching of reading.

12.51 p.m.

Mr. A. Bourne-Arton: It is a great privilege to be allowed to intervene briefly in this short debate on the 40 sounds of English and the 43 symbols, or "Faces of Jim". It is also a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King), who has been associated so long and so tirelessly with my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir J. Pitman) in this great experiment.
I am sure that the controlled experiments of the last few years have given those who had faith in my hon. Friend the Member for Bath a taste of the substance of what they had hoped for, and I have no doubt that this initial training medium will spread throughout the English-speaking world. I certainly hope that it will be a subject very much to the fore in the forthcoming Common-wealth education conferences in August. I am sure that it will spread sooner or later, and I hope that it will be soon. I feel like the Yorkshireman who was taken to see Niagra Falls. When he was told by his proud host how many millions of gallons of water per second were going over the falls, he replied, "I can see nowt to stop it."
Assuming my belief to be well-founded, I should like to mention just two of the results as they appear to me, as one not privileged to have been involved for many years in this work as have my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Itchen. First, I think that this is a major break-through in the productivity of teaching. Productivity is a

matter to which we all now give lip-service. If it be the case that in general terms the average child can save about a year in surmounting the hurdle of learning to read and in gaining access to the world of books and the knowledge and experience which that entails, this is equivalent to adding a year to the average child's school life.
When we remember that 6 million children in the English-speaking world are born and reared each year and that in rough terms the cost of a year's schooling is about £100, we are left with a crude estimate in hard cash of the value of this increased productivity at something like £600 million a year. Staggering, as this figure may be, I do not think that it is the most important result that will flow from this new medium.
The hon. Member for Itchen mentioned the effect which he believed this new system could have on delinquency. This, to me, is the most exciting and important result which I believe this method will have. It is roughly true that nine out of every 10 children who are delinquent or maladjusted or inadequate, call them what we will, either cannot or do not read. I can think of nothing more frustrating to a child than to spend 10 years of his school life failing to learn to read and failing to join his fellows in a literate world, in the realm of ideas and experience to which the written word is the key.
We know the effect on a left-handed child of being forced, as such children used to be forced, to use the right hand. We know that the frustration which this set up often resulted in such manifestations as stammering. How much greater the frustration of a child who, in the first two fears of his life, has accomplished the linguistic miracle of speech only to find that he fails in what should be the much simpler task of using the visual representations of speech.
These children enter adult life as children shut off in a literate world from their literate fellows, shut out from the experience of things which the written word brings, deprived not merely of access to great thoughts but, in a more mundane way, shut off from sharing vicariously in the lurid adventures of James Bond and of romance in all its forms, and living in a world with one dimension missing. They are thrown


back on their own limited physical experience of life with results which are often crude and ugly and which are damaging to a community which should never have allowed them to be isolated. It is the effect which I believe this medium will have on these deprived and lonely members of society that I find most exciting.
The rescue which it will bring to them, these Cinderellas of society, will be seen in years to come as the biggest thing that has happened for generations. It seems to me that this Pitman reading medium will cut through a barrier. It will be a short-cut for most children, and for some of those now deprived of contact with the written word it will provide the only access to a fuller life.
The barrier of learning to read is like a dam across the stream of a child's life. Children surmount it slowly and with more or less difficulty before flowing on to the fertile plains of learning and experience. Behind this barrier is the pool of those who are still illiterate. This pool is far too large. It is a pool which spreads out into many creeks and marshes and some of it becomes stagnant and sour. The great achievement of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath is to have found a way of cutting through this barrier and letting first a trickle and then a flood of learning go bubbling and chuckling on its way to the rich life beyond.
Behind the barrier now cut through, instead of a swampy morass of illiterate frustration I believe that we shall see the sweet water-meadows of childhood. This at least is the vision, and seeing the substance now of the things for which we have hoped I pay tribute to the Minister, as have other speakers, for commending the further development of this method and for backing his commendation with hard cash.
Above all, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath who has pursued his object with great industry over long years, enduring many disappointments and ridicule—yes, much ridicule. Today, we salute him and those who have been associated with him. When he leaves this House, as, unhappily, he has decided to do at the end of this Parliament, he will leave in the result of his work a lasting mark

on the history of the English-speaking world.

1.0 p.m.

Mr. Charles Mapp: I align myself completely and enthusiastically with the references which have been made to the Minister. I do so without reservation. Equally, I pay my respects to the pioneers of this new form of teaching. I say at once that I was not numbered among these pioneers. Indeed, I was not converted until very recently.
My position is, I think, very much the same as that of the Minister himself in that I held quite a detached view about the new method. During the Christmas Recess, however, in a critical state of mind—I say that advisedly—I decided that I would make a full inquiry into what was happening in our Oldham schools. I went to the director of education and I told him of the programme which I wished to follow. I did not ask for the programme which he might have in mind for me.
Accordingly, I chose three schools to visit, one on a new housing estate, one in the centre of the town where conditions are not promising and where there is a backward class, and one in a residential area where there is quite a sprinkling of middle-class boys and girls.
I went, first, to the new school on the housing estate, a school of 240 pupils. I say at once that I found myself in the midst of dedicated teachers. I saw immediately their dedication and enthusiasm for the new method. It is fair to say, also, that they were teachers of probably above average standard, full of enthusiasm for their work. I decided which books I should like to see, which classrooms I wished to visit and which children I wanted to talk to, and during my visit to this school, I began to form very favourable impressions.
About midday, I went to the school in the middle of the town. What I say now is coloured by my experience as a father of three girls, now grown up, and as a juvenile court magistrate. I began to ask myself whether the impression which was constantly occurring to my mind about the children—emphasised at this school—could be right or not. I went to the backward class. I soon realised that there was something more in that class than just a new instru-


ment for teaching. I had to admit that the boys and girls, at 7 and 8 years of age, were two or two-and-a-half years—not one year—in advance of where they would otherwise have been and where my own and other children were at a similar age.
Not only was this an educational achievement of the greatest importance. It was something else. My mind moved immediately to what happened in the courts. I thought of all the boys and girls of 12 to 16 who go out on to the streets, for lack of other things to occupy their minds, to get adventure and run into mischief. But these boys and girls to whom I was talking had new personalities. They were in command of themselves. They were two or three years in advance of the normal development of boys and girls of 7 and 8.
Later, I went to the third school. I should explain that at each school I questioned the teachers very closely to ascertain whether they had opposed the original idea, whether they were against it when it was first introduced, or whether they had welcomed it. It was very clear to me that at the third school the teachers had not been very happy about welcoming the new system and that it had been introduced, to some extent, against their will, or, perhaps I should say, they had not been so enthusiastic about it. However, at the time when I visited them, two or three years after the first introduction of the scheme, those teachers who had been a little un-enthusiastic or critical had become the hottest enthusiasts of the lot.
At the third school, I decided not to question the boys and girls so much but, rather, to look at their intelligence level tests. I asked to see the evidence on this side of the matter, and I found that the results were phenomenal.
I pay my respects now to the pioneers who have developed and put this idea across, to the two illustrious hon. Members of this House, in particular, and to all the others in the world of education. I say, also, that, had it not been for the backing of local education committees in Walsall and our other towns, we should not, perhaps, have been able so readily to record the progress which has been made.
In a personal sense, the examination I made of the backward class was very

enlightening. No one who has for years been chairman of a juvenile court can dismiss the association between what happens in the backward classes of our schools and what happens in the courts. I tell the House frankly that, on my way home that evening, I thought what a golden opportunity it would be if, in a few years, I could have before me 10 boys and girls of 16 years of age for the purpose of recruitment to staff. If half of them had gone through schools with the new form of teaching and half had not, I am quite certain that I should, in the ordinary way, be able to detect the more developed personalities in the boys and girls who had experienced the new teaching method.
It is char to me that children who are taught by the new method, instead of having, to some extent, a vacant life, have the whole world of literature open to them, and this has an enormous influence. Instead of wanting always to be out in the fields or the streets, they know the joy of reading.
In conclusion, I have a request to put to the Minister. I have, of course, discussed with our local director of education how much financial sacrifice for a town like Oldham and, doubtless, other towns is involved in ushering in and continuing this experiment. Incidentally, 36 out of 38 schools in Oldham are in the experiment and Oldham is, perhaps, the town with the longest experience of it. Oldham has no difficulty whatever in being able to demonstrate the results. I was delighted to learn last week that the Minister has agreed to make a contribution of £4,000 in 1963–64 to the appropriate body and another £5,000 in 1964–65. However, I ask him to consider something else.
This request is in no way an indication that the local education authority is any less enthusiastic about going through with the experiment. Oldham will go through with it in any event, because it knows that it is well rewarding to the boys and girls. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the average official allowance per infant per year for stationery and books is 25s. 2d. We do not complain about this, but the appetite now created for books and for the continuance of the new scheme is such that, on a modest estimate, so the director of education tells me, the additional cost per new


pupil—not per pupil per year—is about 30s.
We are approaching the time when we shall have almost 2,000 new scholars a year in Oldham. If Oldham were a rich authority in the southern part of the country, possibly I should not be raising this matter. I say immediately that we shall go on with this experiment. Indeed, to us, it is not now an experiment; it is an established fact. I ask the Minister to consider whether the recommendations which he has made might include consideration of the financial problems of the local authorities concerned.

1.10 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White: We are running a little late, partly due to circumstances not within our control, and, therefore, I will not say more than a few words. However, I should not like the debate to pass without something being said from this Box about how much we appreciate the work which has been done by the hon. Member for Bath (Sir J. Pitman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King), in supporting him, and about how much we welcome the support which the Minister has given.
I should like to echo what has been said about the Minister. While we are very happy that, owing to his personal qualities, he should have a seat in the Cabinet, it is a little unfortunate that it should coincide with his translation to the job of dealing with the universities, as it gives an impression that this is regarded as a more important matter than the schools. I am sure that none of us here today holds that view, and I am sure that the Minister does not. We all expect great things from him in his new capacity, and that in itself will be of help in other aspects of education.
It seems to me that the experiments so far carried out are extremely encouraging. However, it would be a great pity if we were to claim too much. To suggest that this alphabet will save a year's schooling is very dangerous, because, important though reading is, it is not the whole of education or development. I have been interested in reading articles which have been appearing in the Teacher pointing out that although this may be the best scheme so far devised for the purpose, there have been others.
There were experiments many years ago which were inspired by the grandfather of the hon. Member for Bath. Later, just about the beginning of the First World War, there was an outburst of interest in this matter. But, although the reports of those early days read in terms very similar to the terms of some of the reports which we are having now—for example, it was suggested that not only better study, but better conduct and better standards in all subjects could be achieved—these experiments came to an end. The important thing is that this experiment should not peter out as earlier experiments did.
While we wish to assess the experiments properly and to recognise that this is still a matter of investigation and research, we must ensure that the means are provided for the continuation of this work. It was particularly interesting to read in one article the suggestion that one of the reasons why previous experiments petered out was a lack of books on the reformed orthography. The hon. Member for Bath is a publisher and, therefore, he is able to help in this matter. I understand that other publishers also wish to take part. I hope that this time we shall not have a repetition of what has happened before, namely, that after a few years' enthusiasm, and after this generation of teachers has passed on, nothing more is heard of this matter. This time we have a far better chance than ever before, and I wish the experiements great success.
As a Welsh woman, I am interested in this matter. Although the Welsh language is daunting to the outsider, it is completely phonetic, with one exception; the letter Y can be used in two ways. Otherwise, all the Welsh orthography carries out the precise principles adopted by the hon. Member for Bath.

1.15 p.m.

The Minister of Education (Sir Edward Boyle): I should like, first, to join in all that has been said in tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir J. Pitman) and to say what very special pleasure it gave me to answer Oral Questions Nos. 53 and 54 last Thursday.
I wish to emphasise what has been said very properly this morning by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen


(Dr. King), namely, that my hon. Friend has given this initial teaching alphabet to the world and that he has no financial interest in it—just the opposite. The warmth with which the supplementary question of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath was greeted last Thursday was a very deserved tribute to what my hon. Friend has done.
I greatly welcome the fact that we have with us the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp), whose borough has been in the van of this experiment. Listening to him, I could not help reflecting that it is, perhaps, only on occasions like this that we can get down to discussing education in the House.
I should like to say how much I agreed with the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) when she emphasised what is unique about the present experiment. My Department is making a grant to this experiment totalling £9,000 over two years as proof, not just of our interest, but of our desire that this experiment should be fully carried through to the end. The hon. Lady was right to emphasise that aspect.
It is my aim to sit down at half-past one, or very shortly thereafter, but I hope that the House will forgive me if I begin by saying a word about improvements which have been made in the standards of reading since the war. I deplore the recurrent tendency to speak as though illiteracy were on the increase in this country, as though spelling and reading standards had not improved and as though, in some sense, therefore, the money spent on the education service had not been yielding dividends. I am sure that no aspect of public expenditure has yielded greater dividends in terms of human welfare than the expenditure on education.
During the period from 1948 to 1956, there was an improvement in the ability of school children to read with understanding. This improvement was particularly marked in the primary schools, where the age group born in 1945 were, in 1956, on average, nine months more advanced than their predecessors, born in 1937, were in 1948. The corresponding increase at the secondary stage among boys and girls aged 15 was about five months.
To take the period 1948–1956, the proportion of really good readers in primary schools virtually doubled; it increased from 9 per cent. to 17 per cent. The proportion of children of 11 years in the two lowest categories—the illiterate and the semi-literate—shrank from 5 per cent. to 1 per cent. and the corresponding shrinkage at the age of 15 was from 6 per cent. to 4 per cent. Those figures come from a survey made at that time.
The next survey was made in 1961, as a part of the investigations of the Newsom Committee, and the result was a further success story. Fourteen-year-old pupils in secondary-modern schools had advanced by 17 months in the five years from 1956 to 1961.
The House may be interested to know that the Plowden Committee, which is looking into the primary schools, is planning to mount a similar study of the reading attainments of 11-year-old children. That inquiry will take place this summer and will report in two years' time, I have been in touch with the chairman of the Plowden Committee. Lady Plowden is very pleased that I should make this announcement to the House.
I want to return to the initial teaching alphabet and to deal with two issues: first, its efficiency as a medium or technique; and, secondly, to say something about its use. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Bath emphasised that this is not a new method of teaching reading. It is a new medium or a new technique. I told the House last Thursday that the initial teaching alphabet had been used with remarkable success in a number of schools during the early stages of learning. If the promise of the results obtained so far is fulfilled, I have no doubt that its use will spread and that its significance will become, more widely understood.
This is an alphabet, and its consistency makes it easier to recognise and use than the traditional one. My hon. Friend explained to us the difficulties of the traditional orthography for many boys and girls, such as the variations in the written and printed characters—as between upper case and lower case, letters, for instance—the inadequacy of an alphabet of 26 letters for the representation of some 40 speech sounds occurring


in English, and, finally, and perhaps most important, the ambiguity with which letters are used to represent many different sounds.
There is no hint or sniff of what is sometimes called "spelling reform" in the initial teaching alphabet. It is intended as a teaching medium for use until children are able to read traditional orthography. In this alphabet my hon. Friend has used 24 of the 26 letters of the ordinary alphabet and has devised 20 additional characters to secure that each sound has one symbol to represent it. The characters in I.T.A. each stand for one sound only. But the alphabet is much less phonetic than other experimental alphabets, including experimental alphabets of the past, precisely because my hon. Friend is concerned to help children to read conventional spelling. I emphasise the point that the I.T.A. is devised specifically to minimise the difficulties about transferring to conventional spelling later.
We can surely see the a priori advantages of this for children coming to it fresh, without the barriers created for us by previously established word patterns and associations. There is much evidence, though I will not attempt to summarise it in detail, that most children learn to read it more quickly and transfer to traditional orthography easily and drop the I.T.A. when the time comes as readily as they learnt it. I think there may be every reason for expecting, on the basis of what we now know, that the I.T.A. will be invaluable for many children who would otherwise find learning to read very difficult.
There are two comments to be made on that subject. First, there is some good reason to think that it will be slow starters and average children who will benefit most from the I.T.A. Secondly, I emphasise to the House that, on all the evidence we now have, the anxieties which were felt earlier about transferring from the I.T.A. to reading and writing in traditional orthography seem to have been unnecessary. Children in general appear to transfer easily to traditional orthography and quickly from the I.T.A. symbols when the time comes. I.T.A. is a ladder or scaffolding on which they climb, but which they can easily dispense with and throw away later.
There are two cautionary remarks that I want to make at this point. First, there is what I mentioned last week, what is known as the Hawthorn effect, the motivation which is said to be produced in human beings by the knowledge that their work or behaviour is being studied in research. We must bear in mind the possibility that the Hawthorn effect has been at work here in this task I merely say that this point should be borne in mind.

Dr. King: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would apply to the control group, which was under the same challenge?

Sir E. Boyle: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has asked that question. From what I have been able to see, there is some reason to believe—I should not want to make a positive statement—that it might be true that this does not apply so much in the case of the control group as in the case of the experimental group.
Secondly, we have as yet insufficient knowledge about the use of the I.T.A. for the ablest boys and girls. As yet we simply do not know as much as we might about that, partly because relatively few schools in the vanguard of general infant education are participating in the experiment. The objective tests so far used on a large scale have been more of single word recognition rather than comprehension. Also, we have not yet completed the experiments. Those are merely cautionary points which I make today as I made last week, and are not intended in any way to cast doubts on the remarkable results which have so far been achieved.
I want also to say something about the use made of this technique. We must remember that all educational media and all techniques are there to be used in the context of education as a whole. We have, first, to consider the following. Is it necessarily a good thing that boys and girls should learn to read earlier and earlier? About this one can say something on each side. Certainly, reading can open fresh worlds to children. I agree with all that has been said about the frustration of the boy or girl who can never easily learn to read.
At the same time, we must remember that there is another current trend in


infant education, namely, towards using in school the materials and equipment of the outside world rather than purely what one might call didactic apparatus. This is not to contradict the value of the initial teaching alphabet, but is solely to point out that at any given moment there are a number of trends in education. Children need not only book learning, but also first-hand experience to give meaning to what they read.
There is another very important consideration. Communication takes place largely by means of words, but not only by means of words. Emotional development in young children is important as well as book learning.

Sir. J. Pitman: The question of the age at which reading is taught is a policy matter.

Sir E. Boyle: Of course.

Sir J. Pitman: In America it is 6; here it is 5. This medium is quite independent of that policy. All we would say is that when the child begins to be taught—whether it is at the age of 4, 5, 6 or 7—he should have early success and not frustration.

Sir E. Boyle: That is why I was making a distinction between technique and use. Because we have this technique, there may be a tendency to use it as a means of starting reading earlier. I was pointing out that that is something which should be considered on its own merits as an educational issue.
There is also the point that mechanical mastery of reading can run ahead of incentive to read. There would be danger if a child learnt to read very early and suffered disappointment and a slackening of interest as he got older.
The third point is that we want to make sure that those who learn to read more quickly not only read more effectively:it eight or nine, but are as competent in other fields as they are now. All these matters are not about the technique itself, but about the importance of using it seriously, bearing in mind that it has to fit in with all our educational discoveries and thought in other fields.

Mr. Mapp: On the point of the reading appetite, would the right hon. Gentleman take it from me that one of the problems of the Oldham local autho-

rity is the obtaining of books to cope with the additional appetite which is being sustained after three or four years of experiment?

Sir E. Boyle: I accept that. However, I was thinking about an appreciably older age. We have been told that the experiments will not be completed until 1974. We must look at the effects over a wide period of a child's life.
As I said last week, I believe, on all the evidence that we now have, that this is an experiment of very great significance, which will become more and more widely appreciated as time goes by. At the same time, I myself have some doubts whether we shall ever reach a situation in which all teachers and all schools use this technique. It seems to me likely that there will be many first-class teachers who will continue to present techniques, however strong the evidence for the initial teaching alphabet remains at the end of the experimental period. I merely plead that we must avoid, it seems to me, two equal and opposite errors.
It would be wrong for a parent to feel that because of the discoveries made as a result of this new technique his child was not getting fair treatment because the I.T.A. was not used in its school. We are a very long way now from reaching an absolutely final conclusion, and I do not believe myself that it would ever be right to insist on total conformity in this matter. That is to say, I believe that there will always be teachers who will achieve success with the old orthography.
Equally, however, and just as important, I hope that we shall not be subjected to what I would call the militantly anti I.T.A. platform. That would be ridiculous. What I say now is offensive, and I am sorry that it is, but I say it deliberately. Those who remember the gyrations by one or two learned people—one, in particular—in order to discredit the discovery by Michael Ventris, who used to be in my Department and deciphered Linear B, gyrations attempting to prove that this was one more example of Piltdown Man, will realise that distressing things can happen when people take it into their heads to discredit a particular discovery. I


hope that we shall discourage such gyrations in this case.
I should like to thank the House for the kind personal remarks to me this morning. I am especially pleased that the last speech made by somebody holding my present office and title should be made on a subject affecting the primary schools. If anyone feels that the primary schools are being in any way denigrated by the new arrangements all I can say is that I cannot believe that it can be in any way derogatory to the primary schools that as soon as we return from the Easter Recess Questions will be put on the Order Paper to the same Minister about I.T.A. as the one who answers Questions on research and science at the universities.
On the purely personal side, I would say that when I myself move to the other side of the new Department's work I shall regard it as my own chief job to ensure that this new federal Department is, indeed, a unity and realises its responsibility as one single Department covering the whole field. Finally, I should like simply to say how much I have enjoyed the debates during my time as Minister of Education, and to pay a sincere tribute to the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East and to her hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) for the fact that, however sharp our controversies may have been, the usual channels—if I may so call them in this connection—have been completely unclogged during the whole of the last year and a half.

RAILWAY WORKSHOPS

1.32 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: The subject I want to raise today is the refusal of the Minister of Transport to permit British Railways workshops to tender for the manufacture of any privately-owned railway equipment for use on the railways. We have only an hour and a half in which to discuss this decision, which has outraged all railway men and angered everyone from top to bottom in the railway workshops' organisation. As many of us on this side want to speak, some with direct union or constituency interests, we have agreed to do so as briefly as possible.
I must, however, express my amazement that, in view of the seriousness of the indictment against the Minister of Transport, which impugns not only his good sense, but his good faith, he has not considered it necessary to answer the debate himself, but has decided to "pass the buck" to a Parliamentary Secretary who has been only a short time in the Ministry. That will not prevent us, however, from saying what we think about the Minister's behaviour.
The facts are not in dispute. The Minister has turned down Dr. Beeching's request that the railway workshops should be permitted to tender for privately-owned equipment which is to be used exclusively on British Railways lines, and specifically, oil wagons, where the value of the possible orders may run into many millions of pounds and provide employment in one or more of the workshops over many years to come. He has turned down this request on three grounds, which he stated in reply, on 3rd March, to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell).
The first is:
The primary task of the British Railways Board is to provide railway services…
That is obvious, and irrelevant. It is nonsense to suggest that the manufacture of equipment by the railway workshops could in any way inhibit the Board from running the railways efficiently. Dr. Beeching obviously thinks that it is nonsense. Otherwise, he would not have made his request. The Minister's second argument is:
This proposal would not have been in accordance with the Government's policy, which was made clear on several occasions when the Transport Act, 1962, was before Parliament.
We challenge the Parliamentary Secretary to quote a single sentence in support of this statement. The Act, which is the only thing that matters, specifically permits the railway workshops to manufacture equipment for use by the Railways Board, and the equipment we are discussing will be used exclusively by the Railways Board.
The Minister's third reason is that
there is at present no justification for the nationalised transport undertakings entering the field of manufacture for outside customers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1964; Vol. 690. c. 212.]


That is a pronunciamento, not an argument. Surely, in this case, there is every justification.
If the railway workshops are efficient enough in fair competition, properly allowing in the tendered prices for overheads and a reasonable margin of profit, to make wagons cheaper than private manufacture can do, it is highly desirable, on every ground, that they should be permitted to do so. Is it not in the interests of the purchasers of the wagons? Is it not in the interests of the railway workshops staffs, many of them elderly, with long years of service, who are under the threat of becoming redundant and having to seek work in other towns? Is it not in the interests of the workshop managements and technicians who have succeeded in making those railway workshops efficient and competitive? And is it not in the national interest that national resources should not be wasted?
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary: what has become of the Government's much-vaunted beliefs in the virtues of competition, about which we have been hearing so much, particularly recently in connection with the Resale Prices Bill? Is this all my eye and Betty Martin? Will he tell us, perhaps, whether, in the view of the Government, competition is a good thing only when it is between two privately-owned companies, and is a bad thing when it is between a publicly-owned company and a privately-owned one?
What about the pledge to the unions, when they expressed to the Railways Board the deep concern and resentment of the workshops employees at the decision to make progressive and substantial curtailment in orders? They were then told that if those employed in the workshops co-operated in the modernisation plan to maximise efficiency every effort would be made to keep the workshops as busy as possible. To violate that pledge, as the Minister is now forcing the Board to do, is not only to betray the workers concerned, but to discourage rationalisation and efficiency.
How does the Minister reconcile this decision with the directive to Dr. Beeching to do everything possible to make the railways pay? In pursuit of that objective Dr. Beeching has proposed

railway closures on a large scale which are bound to make life harder for very many people. But, at the same time, Dr. Beeching is prevented by the Minister from being allowed to increase the railways' revenue by tendering for large and profitable contracts. This makes nonsense of the whole closure objective, and will add to the resentment of those who have to suffer by its implementation.
There can be only one possible explanation of the Minister's behaviour. His concern for the private wagon builders is greater than his concern for the profitability of the railways, the interests of the taxpayer, the railway workers, and the public welfare. His policy is utterly indefensible, and that is probably why he is not here today to defend it himself.
I can give this pledge. It will be one of the first acts of any new Labour Government to reverse this decision; and the sooner the better.

1.40 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell: In view of the large number of hon. Members who wish to contribute to the debate. I intend, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), to be brief. I want to add to my right hon. Friend's protest. Here we have the Minister's decision which prevents the Railways Board from increasing its efficiency and reducing its loss. The Minister's political decision is responsible and it is a shocking state of affairs that he is not present to defend it today. We admire his Parliamentary Secretary, but this is a top-rank Ministerial decision and it is disgraceful that the Minister himself is not here to defend it.
As far as we can gather, according to a reply which I have received from Dr. Beeching, between 5,000 and 6,000 of the special oil tank wagons which will be required for use on the "liner" trains are likely to be built during the next four or five years. We are told that the cost is between £2,000 and £3,000 for each wagon. When we analyse the accounts of the Transport Commission—and the Minister has shown with pride that Dr. Beeching has reduced the loss by £32 million—we find that this reduction in the loss has been brought about, not by increased efficiency, but by the


dismissal of railwaymen. Compared with two years ago, the figure of ton-miles per wagon shows a considerable decrease in efficiency of operation.
With that picture in mind, it is indefensible that the railway workshops are not being allowed to tender for the production of these wagons. That is all that is asked. The railway management, which is keen and desirous of doing it, is disturbed. The unions are raging mad about the whole thing, which will have dire consequences. Let us make no mistake about it.
Up to now, the unions and the Railways Board have faced closure of about 12 of these railway workshops. They have seen a reduction of about 20,000 in manpower when, according to railway management, in the person of the then Sir Brian Robertson before the Select Committee of 1959–60, the railway workshops were well equipped to produce this special type of wagon. Now, the Minister refuses to permit their production.
The Minister will be aware of the tremendous discussion that is going on about whether the "liner" trains will ever be allowed to run. The 15 routes which have been suggested for the "liner" trains are held very much in jeopardy and the Minister's decision is one of the causes. The Railways Board is trying to enforce upon the unions the use of the free terminals for all kinds of road hauliers. The unions do not mind the C-licence holders, British Road Services or the railway C and D delivery vehicles, but they object to the long-distance private road haulier being invited to use the free terminal points.
If the Minister wants good will and wishes to get this proposal across to the unions, to accept a further reduction in railway staff by allowing outside private enterprise firms to use railway equipment and to make railwaymen redundant is not the way to go about it. By refusing to allow the railway workshops to produce these wagons, he is increasing redundancy. It is no wonder, therefore, that there is strong feeling on the part of all the men engaged in railways.
This is all part of a campaign. We have seen hon. Members opposite conducting a smear campaign against

publicly-owned undertakings, preventing them from having the ordinary commercial freedom of which they have spoken so much from time to time. They want ordinary commercial freedom for private enterprise, but when it comes to publicly-owned undertakings they prevent these ordinary rules of commercial freedom from operating.
This is a matter that will not end with this short debate. An important principle is involved. The Parliamentary Secretary will be aware of Motion No. 75 which is on the Order Paper, and which has been signed by a large number of hon. Members on this side of the House. The number of those signatures is likely to increase considerably.
[That this House deplores the refusal of the Minister of Transport to allow British Railways to tender for the manufacture of wagons and containers for private rail users which has thus prevented free competition between the public and private sectors of the railway manufacturing industry.]
I assure the Minister that he will hear a lot more about this matter. I whole-heartedly endorse the pledge given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall, that after the election, when we on this side come back to power, as we shall, we will reverse the Minister's decision and give British Railways workshops the utmost freedom to compete on ordinary commercial terms in the same way as any private enterprise undertaking.

1.46 p.m.

Mr. Tom Bradley: We are discussing this afternoon a decision by the Minister which is the most brazen example we have yet had of his built-in anti-railway bias. He has created, once again, a situation in which the railway trade unions are side by side with the railway management in opposing and resisting him.
The railways have always desired to manufacture their own equipment. Notwithstanding that, the work has always been offered to contract, both within the railway industry and to outside firms. Three-quarters of the value of existing new locomotive orders is placed with outside private industry. Now, however, when it comes to the manufacturing of privately-owned equipment for use on


the Board's railway network, the British Railways workshops are not to be allowed to tender for its construction and the contracts are to be confined to private firms. In other words, there is to be one law for the public industry and another for the private sector. The former is to be subject to restriction, but the latter is to have complete freedom.
The Minister's decision prevents free competition between public and private sectors of the railway manufacturing industry. Could anything be more doctrinaire? How far does the Minister want to take his hatred of nationalisation? I remind him of his party's declaration in the 1950 election manifesto that they would do everything possible to improve the commercial standards in nationalised industries. What kind of contribution is this to that aspiration? It makes a complete mockery of the Minister's instruction to Dr. Beaching to run the railways as he would run a business. It may have far more serious consequences.
I recall vividly the meeting on 19th September, 1962, when the appropriate railway unions were suddenly summoned to a meeting to discuss the new workshop modernisation plan, when Sir Steuart Mitchell, in unfolding that plan before the unions—without any prior consultation—told us that it was the Board's intention to rationalise its workshops, which would involve redundancies amounting to nearly 20,000 men. Sir Steuart Mitchell told us on that occasion that it was the Board's intention
to re-equip, re-plan and re-layout the continuing works so that they can compete successfully with private industry and maintain steady employment.
As to the allocation of work between railway workshops and outside industry, Sir Steuart Mitchell told us that it was the Commission's policy.
in principle to utilise the cheapest source.
The report of his remarks goes on to state:
However he had no doubts at all that the railway workshsops could always be the cheapest source given three things:

(a) A heavy and steady work load—planning was aimed at this:
(b) The best equipment available—this would be acquired; and
(c) The co-operation of the staff."



Does the Minister think that he has contributed to the stall's confidence in the future, from which these operations must stem? Notwithstanding the workshop redundancy involved in the plan outlined two years ago, the unions accepted the plan. Today, the unions in the railways and outside are often accused of thwarting the modernisation of industry and are taunted accordingly. But the railway unions and the others associated with the workshops accepted repeated assurances that there would be full opportunity in the future to tender over the whole range of railway requirements.
The management is playing its part and I am sure that the statements made to the unions two years ago by the management were in good faith. The management hopes to spend £10 million in the next few years on modernisation of the workshops and, indeed, £1million has already been spent for that purpose.
Now, the Minister strikes this blow. We are entitled to ask how many further redundancies will flow from it. The Railways Board must be planning its workshop programme and capacity in expectation of getting some orders for private rolling stock. The capacity and the staff ate there to do the job. But, by this decision, the Minister has stopped the tendering for 4,600 oil wagons over the next four years.
If the right hon. Member maintains his decision one wonders what will happen about the private tenders for the new "lines" trains, the prototype of which we recently had the privilege of seeing. Railway workshop tenders are highly competitive and they are based on true costs plus overheads, including a small profit margin. The workshops have great experience of these things but the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to squander all that for the sake of protecting the private sector of industry.

Mr. David Webster: During the hearings of the Select Committee on the Nationalised Industries, in 1960, the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu), a member of that Committee, asked—this is Question 1417—whether the railway workshops had profit and loss accounts. The answer was "No".

Mr. Bradley: My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) told me that the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) would probably raise this matter. My hon. Friend was good enough to write to me about it. He tells me that he is prepared to see British Railways workshops put on a profit and loss basis with separate accounting facilities. But the hon. Member's quarrel is with my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton and not with me.
In view of this decision, and in relation to the wider plan of the reshaping of British Railways, is it the Minister's intention to dismember not only the network of the railways, but the apparatus as well? British Railways have been striving for years and are now beginning to have some success in reducing the huge financial deficits which are such a burden on the taxpayers. But the taxpayers are also electors and it is as well that they should know that the Minister's animosity is deliberately preventing British Railways from making money where they can.

1.54 p.m.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: As my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) has indicated, we shall seek to return to this subject after the Easter Recess if we are given the opportunity and, therefore, like my hon. Friends, I shall be very brief. This is a deplorable example of narrow, doctrinaire, party bias, but essentially it is quite a simple matter. The Transport Act, 1962, quite clearly gives the Railways Board power to do this work. I do not think there is any dispute about that.
The Railways Board's lawyers have given a clear opinion and the Minister himself admits—I have a letter from him here—that this is not the issue. Indeed, only last Tuesday the Ministry's spokesman in another place made it plain that the Act permitted the Board to tender for and to do this work.
Of course, the demand for these wagons and containers is a new development. It arises from Dr. Beeching's plans for the new liner trains and from the very big ten-year contract, signed in 1963 with the oil companies, for the railways

to transport their products. I agree that it is possible that, if the Minister had foreseen these developments when he was putting the Act through Parliament, his dislike of public enterprise and bias against railways might have made him make the Act even worse than it is and forbid the railway workshops to do this work. But he did not, and the Act does permit it.
Therefore, we are dealing with a specific action of the Minister, deliberately directed against the workshops to deprive them of the right the law gives them to compete against private firms and to win, as the Railways Board is convinced that it would have won, orders worth many millions of pounds. That can only be described as a blatant display of pure political prejudice and bias. Indeed, the Minister himself has not produced any explanation of his action except to say, as he does in his letter to me, that it is the Government's policy. That means that this is how he has decided to treat the railways despite his own Act.
In the meantime, various allegations have been made to explain the Minister's attitude. They were made by his spokesman in another place yesterday and by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster), who is Chairman of the Conservative Party Transport Committee, in a political broadcast, when he was using a Ministry of Transport brief. These allegations deserve a little examination.
The first is that, despite the wording of the Transport Act, certain commitments were entered into either by the previous Parliamentary Secretary or by the Minister himself during the passage of the Act and that these commitments compel the Minister to discriminate against the railway workshops in the way he is doing. Indeed the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare spoke of a breach of an undertaking which the Minister had made to Parliament.
I have been very carefully right through HANSARD'S reports of all the debate, including the Committee stage, on the Transport Act, and I can find nothing that would substantiate this allegation which I understand is being made. If the Parliamentary Secretary wishes to repeat the allegation that the Minister is bound by some undertaking


to Parliament, then he is under an obligation to produce chapter and verse. But, whatever the Minister may claim to have said, the Act permits the Board to do this work.
The second allegation, which is a very serious one, is that there is something unfair about the way in which the workshops have tendered and that their costing is not realistic. Indeed, this was said by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare who followed the same line in his interjection in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley). In the broadcast to which I have referred, the hon. Member specifically mentioned a concealed subsidy. He said that it was impossible to make sure that there was adequate and sound competition.
All kinds of insinuations are being made about the fact that the railway workshops are not really competing on a fair basis with private firms. One can imagine the feelings of Dr. Beeching and his businessmen about these allegations. I took the matter up with the Minister and got a thoroughly evasive answer. He said
I am assured by the Board that they make this allocation"—
that is to say, of overheads—
quite fairly
But he does not say whether he accepted the assurances or that he agrees that the Board is costing properly in the workshops. He adds
…but I have thought it proper, as I have already told the House, to reserve my right at any time to examine the validity of the costing arrangements of the Board's workshops".
Does the Minister accept the Railways Board's costings or does he accept the charges, made by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare and others, that there is something "fishy" about them, that they are misusing Government subsidies and concealing overheads. This matter must be cleared up in the House.

Mr. Webster: I never used that expression.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I did not quote the hon. Gentleman. I was saying that the allegation was being made widely that there is something "fishy", which is a very good adjective to describe the way in which the Railways Board has been treated.

Mr. Webster: rose—

Mr. Noel-Baker: The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to make his own speech in a moment. Perhaps that would be a better time for him to raise this issue.
I do not raise this subject as a constituency point, although it is of the greatest interest to all the railwaymen in the workshops in Swindon, at all levels. I raise it because I think that it draws attention to an important matter of principle—the Government's whole attitude to the nationalised industries, about which we will hear something during the coming election, and the sincerity of Ministers when they speak about competition between the public and private. sector.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East has referred to the large proportion of railway work which is going out to private firms. There are strong feelings about that in the workshops in Swindon—and about some of the defective locomotives which are made by private firms and which go to the Swindon workshops to be put right there. Since the Transport Act and since the Minister has been in his present position, the whole economy has been loaded against the public sector at every possible opportunity.
We observe the presence of the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton) in the Chamber. We note that he put down an admirable Motion complaining about the Government's behave-our but that he withdrew it without explanation. We hope that we will hear his views during the debate.

Mr. A. Bourne-Acton: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has seen only half the manoeuvre. I withdrew my Motion into workshops for a minor modification and drove it out the following morning in a rather better form.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I observe that it is not on the Order Paper now. I regret that very much, as I do the fact that the hon. Gentleman is not to give us his opinion. I am sure that the electors of Darlington will draw their own conclusions from his action.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: I am not allowed to speak again without leave of the House, and no doubt the hon. Member's hon. Friends will be relieved to hear


that I am not seeking it. I have already spoken on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I repeat that the electors in the railway workshops in Darlington will draw their own conclusions.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: They can draw their own conclusions from the terms of my Motion, which is quite clear.

Mr. Noel-Baker: This matter is of the greatest importance to all Members representing railway constituencies. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) has asked me to express his regret at not being present in the debate. I apologise to the House that he has been inevitably detained elsewhere. However, the Parliamentary Secretary may have seen a letter in The Times today signed by my right hon. Friend and a number of my hon. Friends.
I end by saying that this disgraceful decision should be reversed at the earliest possible opportunity. My right hon. Friend has pledged the Labour Party to reverse it as soon as it comes to power. It is a blatant example of political bias and prejudice and it makes nonsense of all the fine talk which we have heard, day in, day out, from the Minister of Transport and his colleagues about competition between the public and private sectors.

2.3 p.m.

Mr. David Webster: The Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton) is on the Order Paper in the clearest terms. It seemed rather odd to me that the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) should attack my hon. Friend, who has already made a very useful speech on another subject, when the hon. Member was not here, and should say that my hon. Friend's constituents will draw their own conclusions, and, at the same time, apologise for his right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) not being here. That is charity being slightly one-sided.
Having read the Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, I am well aware that there are many towns and constituencies dependent on railway workshops as one of their major

sources of industry. I sympathise with them very much in this problem, for that makes it increasingly difficult and arouses passions on the subject. I hope that I may also remind the House that there are other constituencies and trade unions involved in the private enterprise side which are also deeply concerned about redundancies because of the reduction of rolling stock requirements. That is fair. This is not a case of political dogma. The figures of the number of wagons and carriages divided between railway workshops and manufacturing industry show a tremendous bias towards the railway workshops. I am not saying that that is wrong, but it puts the matter in perspective. There is a general rundown in the requirement because of the reduction of rolling stock. These things should be equally shared between the two contributors involved in the manufacture.
The hon. Member for Swindon has attacked me and used expressions such as "fishy" for a broadcast interview about a fortnight ago, which he called a party political broadcast. I gather that he was the person who was asked to go on the wireless. That shows how party political it was. He said that I was accusing the railways of fiddling the books. I resent that type of expression and I have certainly never used it. I said that it was very difficult to deny that there was a concealed subsidy. I propose to let the House be the judge, because this problem was considered by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, which is not a partisan body. The Select Committee's views on the subject of costs and their allocation to overheads is a matter of which the House should be reminded.
The hon. Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley) was kind enough to say that I informed the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) that I would probably refer to certain of the questions asked by the hon. Member for Edmonton when the Select Committee was taking evidence. Speaking to the railway workshop people, in Question No. 1393 the hon. Member for Edmonton asked:
You are able to check that the allocation of your overheads is right?—Yes.
1394. Because it would seem to take no account of the difference in requirements


between production on the one hand and the repair on the other of heavy and expensive capital equipment?—Oh yes, that is the very thing it does do.
1395. With the greatest respect, your check does not take any account at all, because you have said so.
When that situation occurs, it is very difficult for the hen. Member for Swindon to be justified when he rises in his wrath and accuses me of saying that the railways are fiddling with the accounts.

Mr. Popplewell: To be logical, the hon. Member should see what the Select Committee for Nationalised Industries, of which I was a member, said in 1959. The matter was discussed then. In deference to the Select Committee's views, the British Transport Commission brought in an outside firm of accountants to see if greater clarity could be brought into the costing system, but that outside firm of accountants was not able to find any method better than that then in operation.

Mr. Webster: I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, because it shows that the same situation exists today.
The hon. Member for Edmonton asked about the profit and loss account. I am not quoting someone from my own side but the hon. Member for Edmonton, who is unbiased on this subject as I would be the first to acknowledge. At Question No. 1422 he asked:
So it is not possible to draw up a revenue and expenditure account and profit and loss account for the workshops because you have not even a notional figure of revenue?—No sale value, even in the form of an estimate; only in the new construction.
These questions and answers show the tremendous difficulty of proving accounts on this subject.
Account must be taken of the fact that in the accounts of 1962 the British Transport Commission, as it then was for the last time, had a rail deficit of £81 million out of a total deficit of £103 million with central charges of £55 million. This is where the Government are the banker, which means that the taxpayers are the banker and are paying money to the railways. When it is remembered that advances by the Minister under the 1957 Act, as amended, are £690 million and under the Transport (Railway Finances) Act, 1957, as amended, £302 million it will be appre-

ciated that a tremendous amount of taxpayers' money goes into this activity.
I feel that while this is the case the remark that I made is justified. I am a former member of the Select Committee on Estimates and I have found how difficult it is to judge these matters in relation to different public bodies, and to discover the true profit and loss figure and a true criterion of efficiency. So long as this situation persists I shall go on saying that it is taxpayers' money that is being used, in competition with industries which are also taxpayers.

Mr. J. T. Price: We do not have time to debate this issue, but since the hon. Member has mentioned the difficulties he found when visiting various large nationalised undertakings, is he not aware that the same difficulty arises in the cases of all large-scale activities, especially I.C.I., which is one of the biggest private enterprises in this country? Other enterprises could be quoted. It is the size of the concern which makes it difficult. But if the hon. Member is basing his argument on the ground of a failure to provide proper accountability, the Minister of Transport and his predecessors in Conservative Governments have been responsible for this system for the last 12 or 13 years during which they have been in charge.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): Order. The hon. Member is not in possession of the Floor. It is an abuse of our procedure to try to make a speech within a speech.

Mr. Webster: I thank the hon. Member for allowing me to get my breath back. I.C.I. has a profit and loss account, and that proves my case.
I have no constituency interest in the matter, and so I shall be brief. I was a member of the Standing Committee on the 1962 Act, which took away the common carrier liability from the railways, and also their liability to publish their charges. I took the view that it was entirely wrong that the railways should have to publish their charges, because their competitors would then know where it was profitable for them to vary their rates. It was commercially prudent so to do. In the same way, the present Railways Board is practically a monopoly user. It buys from outside. I admit


that by doing so it nourishes private industry, but at the same time it receives tenders from many large private enterprise carriage and wagon makers. They have to put in their tenders, so that in that case the private manufacturer is in exactly the same difficulty as were the railways in respect of charges.
To extend the ability of nationalised railways to compete against private industry at a time of overall reduction would throw private industry into jeopardy. We have heard of the Marxist philosophy about the withering away of the State; I would not subscribe to the withering away of private enterprise. I am proud to say so.

2.13 p.m.

Mr. James Boyden: The announcement on 26th February was a shattering blow to the workers in Shildon, in my constituency. By a curious irony of fate, on the day of the announcement I was attending a transport users' consultative committee which was considering the closing of the very last passenger service in my constituency. With respect to Darlington, Shildon happens to be the home of the railways. Its workshops and the fate of the town are bound up with each other. Everyone knows that the unemployment rate in my constituency is between 2½ and 3 times the national average. The situation is slightly better than it was six months ago, but in broad terms it has deteriorated steadily since the last General Election.
This morning the Prime Minister said that one of the purposes of the North-East Study and the South-East Study was to enable people to live and work in their own area. I cannot imagine the Minister of Transport subcribing to that doctrine, because his refusal to allow the Shildon works to compete for these private containers means that the future of the workshops is in considerable doubt. The trade unions in the works, and also the local council, are seriously alarmed at the decision.
In the last year I have been very pleased at the way in which British Railways have been modernising and improving their works at Shildon. Compared with the situation two years ago

there is a much greater air of efficiency. Men are now treated reasonably, with toilets and other things of that description. The whole atmosphere is much better, and the men and their union leaders are pulling their weight. They are doing this against intolerable pressure from the management to cut their piece-work rates in order to compete with private enterprise. The only comment I would make on that is that it seems a very strange reward, in return for the full co-operation of the workers, to deprive the works of the ability to compete for a very large order.
I do not say that Shildon should be given the whole order, but at least a share of it would give some security to the town, which so much depends upon the railways. If I could see signs that the Government really intended to carry out the intentions of the Hailsham Plan I would not mind, but although Shildon is adjacent to the town of Newton Aycliffe it is excluded from the growth area. Only one small advance factory is being built on the trading estate, and the outlook for the town is very bleak.
British Railways recognise their responsibility to Shildon. They desire, in their own interest, that the town should prosper, but I can tell the Parliamentary Secretary that if he does not do very much more by way of long-term provisions for the Shildon workshops the welfare of Shildon and the adjacent area will be undermined more rapidly than it would be improved through the factories being put up in the adjacent town of Newton Aycliffe.
Few people in other parts of the country understand the community life and the close activities of a town like Shildon. It has a very progressive council. It is steadily improving its amenities, and it is therefore absolutely disastrous that a Minister with almost the power of life and death over the economic welfare of the town should take steps, by way of one sentence in a document, which can do more damage to Shildon than all the good that has been done by the years and years of devoted work of trade unionists and councillors.
I have asked the Minister of Transport to receive a deputation from the council and trade unions, and I hope that he will.


I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to give us, today, some reassurance about the future of the workshops at Shildon, and to tell us that there will be a retraction of the disastrous decision that he has made.

2.17 p.m.

Mr. Niall MacDermot: I hope that I shall be able to emulate the brevity of my hon. Friends, even if I cannot match the force and cogency of their arguments. On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) and myself I wish to protest—and this is also the protest of Derby and the Derby workshops—against the Minister's iniquitous decision.
I also wish to join in the protest at the absence of the Minister. He knew that this debate was to take place; indeed, he gave it as a reason for refusing to answer certain Questions which were addressed to him the other day. One would have thought from that, and from the gravity of the matter, arising from the high-handed policy decision that he has taken, that he would have sought to justify himself in the House today.
In a sense, this is where I came in. The first speech that I made in this House after having had the honour of being returned as Member for Derby, North, was in the 1962 debate on the Transport Commission Report. Then we were debating the great anxiety of railway workshops all over the country at the proposed closures.
I remember referring in that debate to the fact that the then recent contracts for new Pullmans had been put out to private firms without the railway workshops being given an opportunity to tender. I asked then that the Minister should give an assurance that at least in future there would be fair competition between the railway workshops and privately-owned industries. I asked for a specific assurance that no work would be contracted out without an opportunity being given to the railway workshops to tender. In the somewhat shabby reply, as I submit it was, on this point, which was made by the then Parliamentary Secretary, not only did he fail to give any such assurance, but saw fit to make insinuations against the genuineness of the prices quoted by the workshops.

We have heard the same sort of arguments put forward today by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster).
I hope that we shall have a clear and frank answer from the Parliamentary Secretary today. He must know, even if the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare does not, that independent accountants have investigated this matter and reported that it is not practicable in a nationalised industry of this kind to produce accounts on the same basis as in a private industry for direct comparison. He will also know that under the Beeching régime great care is being taken to overhaul the whole of the costings arrangements of all sections of the industry. On a recent visit to the Derby works I was assured of the very great care which is taken to ensure proper costings.
The Minister must make his position on this matter quite clear. It is not enough for him to say, "I have been assured by the Railways Board that proper deductions are being made for overheads" and so on. Either he backs Dr. Beeching and the attitude and stand he has taken with his assistants, or he does not. If he says that these are dishonest figures, let him state it openly and give reasons, not allow this kind of sniping and insinuation to go on against the industry unsupported by any facts or figures. Apart from anything else, it is a complete reflection on Dr. Beeching and the work he is carrying out.
My belief is that this is yet another step in a consistent campaign of discrimination against the public sector of this industry. Last year we had the decision that the railway workshops should not be allowed to tender for passenger vehicles for the Victoria Line. That was put out to private tender alone. Arguments were put forward that there were special reasons in that case. It was said that the railway workshops had not the design staffs available for that contract. From my inquiries, whatever may have been the view of the management side, I find that the staffs themselves did not accept the basis of that argument. Although they were busy at the time, there was plenty of time for them to do that development work on the design side.
If this kind of argument is to be put forward it means that monopolies of the


private sector will be established and it will never be possible for the publicly-owned workshops to breach those monopolies. There can be no question about the ability of the railway workshops to pioneer in these new fields. They have been the pioneers in many fields of work in connection with rollingstock. It was in Derby that the first all-steel carriages were built. The standard wagons for coals and minerals were built and pioneered there. Since 1935 they have been manufacturing diesel cars and have manufactured a high proportion of all the diesel cars on the railways today. The railway workshops have constantly shown and proved their ability to manufacture a great variety of vehicles with at least as great, if not greater, efficiency, and at less cost than any outside firm.
We have the latest decision that the workshops are not to be allowed to tender for tankers on the liner trains and tank wagons for the oil companies. I am told that a decision has recently been communicated to the staffs that it is intended that the railway workshops shall cease the work of breaking up condemned coach stock as from 31st March. I am told that this decision was taken without prior consultation with the men and that in future this work is to be done by private firms.
The Minister must know that there is not in fact fair competition between the publicly-owned railway workshops and private firms for a number of reasons. One well-known and often-argued reason is that whereas the private firms have the advantage of being able to sell in the export markets as well as manufacturing for our industry, that is denied to the railway workshops. The railway workshops are confined to manufacturing for the home industry and are not allowed to develop ordinary by-products and sidelines as is done in private industry.
I have been given a simple example of this by the new manager of the carriage works in Derby. In one section of the works which was at that time slack there were considerable amounts of off-cuts of materials which had to be sold purely as scrap. If the railway workshops had been allowed, they could have used available labour in the manufacture from those off-cuts of things such as table mats.

That would have been lucrative work for the workshops, but, because this is a nationalised industry, they were not allowed to do so.
Now we have the decision that they are not to be permitted to tender for rollingstock for private users. I look forward to hearing from the Minister the arguments he can put forward to support this decision. There is no doubt whatever that it is seriously undermining the confidence of the staffs and the men in the workshops. We regard it as a decision taken purely on political grounds and one which we shall see is reversed as soon as we are returned to power.

2.27 p.m.

Mr. John Hynd: It is clear from this debate and from the whole history of Government policy in regard to the railways that the Conservative Party is coming out more openly than ever as the champion of private profit makers as against the national interests. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport smiles and shakes his head, but this is clear.
When he was talking about costings the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) pointed out that the more the railways developed their workshops and other activities the less there will be for private enterprise. But what is private enterprise? It is a collection of individuals and groups of individuals concerned with making private profit and is not concerned with the interests of the nation as a whole, for that is not their business. A nationalised concern is an important national service recognised as such, even by the Conservative Government and which it is, therefore, in the interests of the nation to serve and develop. Otherwise, there would be no case for having the railways nationalised whereas the Conservatives have admitted that there is such a case.
It is interesting in these debates on nationalised industries to find that from hon. Members opposite we have a defence of the right of private individuals to make profit out of the country's needs and out of essential social services while on this side of the House there is no personal private interest whatever. We are not concerned individually or as a party with whether


the railways are nationalised or not, from our personal, private point of view.
On the other side of the House private profit is the one motive. That was clearly demonstrated today by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare. This is the vital difference between us: we are concerned to defend the public interest; the Tories are concerned to defend private profit-making. Normally, the Tory Party tries to preserve a public image of being a genuine political party concerned with the public good and not merely with private motives. It is not doing that very well at present, particularly in the case of the railways. Tory policy on the railways has been one of persistent sabotage of the development of this nationalised concern.
This was demonstrated when the Tories interfered with the reinvestment and modernisation policy. It was demonstrated by the present Minister of Transport in January, 1961, when he announced his new Beeching policy and admitted that the Government had deliberately held up the electrification of the London Midland line and then subsequently decided that it would be a good thing to go ahead.
Large electrification policies cannot be carried out on such a basis, with large investments held up for months and then allowed to continue. The Minister added this:
the Government approval of this electrification work does not mean that other major main line electrification will necessarily be approved.
This was a policy which even Aims of Industry denounced in round terms as unsatisfactory and confusing and against the public interest. This has been the policy of the Government, and they are going still further now.
What was the policy which the railways were supposed to pursue under Dr. Beeching? In the debate on 30th January, 1961, the present Minister said this:
We aim to give managements full opportunities to give of their best. They will have the means and tools of good management and be able to feel and bear the weight of personal responsibility for their actions.
Is Dr. Beeching being afforded that facility at present, or is he not being interfered with by the Minister and

being prevented from having personal responsibility?
The Minister continued in this way:
This is of particular importance as regards the railways. Nowhere is a single-minded direction needed more.
He later made this very relevant statement:
The Board will have particularly important responsibilities in fruitful modernisation investment and in getting the best value for money.…The man on the spot does not give of his lest looking over his shoulder and having to wait upon decisions relating to his own job taken at levels remote from him."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th January, 1961; Vol. 633, c. 617–27.]
This is what the present Minister said when giving Dr. Beeching his mandate to make the railways a commercial profit-making concern. Dr. Beeching is trying to do precisely what the Minister told him he had to do. In this case Dr. Beeching has asked the Minister to agree that the Board's primary policy is to place its available manufacturing work with the most economical source.
What is wrong with that under this policy? What is wrong with it even under the conceptions of the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare or any other defender of private enterprise on the other side of the House? I read from Dr. Beeching's memorandum to the Ministry:
The Board's primary policy is to place the available manufacturing work with the most economical source. Economics in this context comprise not only price, but factors such as satisfactory delivery.
There are other things to be taken into account in assessing costs. Dr. Beeching said, quite frankly:
Where on the above basis the quotations from railway workshops and private firms are comparable in their essential features, the Board will allocate the work to railway workshops.
This is the gravamen of the case to be met by the Minister. What is wrong with that? The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare talked about costing and the importance of all railway workshops being on a commercial basis. Is it suggested that Dr. Beeching is betraying either his own commercial instincts or the confidence placed in him by the Minister to exercise his commercial instincts and experience in ensuring that the production of an article in railway


workshops is more advantageous commercially for the railway industry than placing it outside, taking all factors into consideration?
Is that the suggestion? I would like to hear clearly from the Minister what he is suggesting. Either he is accusing Dr. Beeching of having insufficient commercial instincts or betraying them if he has sufficient commercial instincts, or he is accusing Dr. Beeching of betraying the confidence he has placed in him to ensure that these commercial rules are observed.
Personally, I am not so much concerned about whether there is a costing system which ensures that every single item is costed exactly, because that is not possible in an organisation of this kind. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare said that the difference was that I.C.I. has a profit and loss account. So have the railways. Did not the hon. Gentleman know that? British Railways also publishes a profit and loss account. A full set of accounts is published every year. The accounts of the railways are made even more public than those of I.C.I.

Mr. Webster: I was talking about the workshops.

Mr. Hynd: I know that, but the hon. Gentleman was not talking about sections of I.C.I.'s activities. Does the hon. Gentleman assert that every section of I.C.I.'s activities is costed? Of course it is not. I.C.I. has an overall responsibility to its shareholders, and Dr. Beeching has an overall responsibility to the Minister and, therefore, to the public, to ensure that the overall undertaking is run with the best commercial results. It is the responsibility of Dr. Beeching and of the head of I.C.I. to ensure that the total operations of their respective concerns are carried out in that way. The head of I.C.I. and Dr. Beeching must, therefore, be satisfied that every individual aspect of the organisation's operations is carried out in the most advantageous way.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of the public money which had been lost on the railways. We are trying to save public money, and, therefore, we oppose the Minister's decision. The Minister is causing the loss of more public money

by preventing the railways carrying out this work. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the public money spent on the railways, and mentioned the "fantastic" figure of £169 million. What about the cost of the roads? It has been estimated that £40 million is the cost of accidents alone on the roads each year. Is that sum taken into account in assessing the value of the railways? Is the total cost of the roads taken into account in assessing whether they are commercially viable?
Is there any proposal to close every mile of road which is not making a profit? On the contrary, is it not said, "This is public money, but it is public money well spent "? The railways, too, are a method of transport and conveyance, just as the roads are. Why should there be such hypocrisy about the money lost by the railways, whereas the money spent on the roads is supposed to be well spent in the public interest?
Why should the railways be subjected to discriminatory treatment? They are confined to certain activities. They are prevented from carrying out other activities directly affecting their own operations and directly affecting their own interests, according to Dr. Beeching's conception. They are forced to put these things out to private enterprise. Can any hon. Gentleman tell us of any single private concern in this country which is instructed by legislation that it must not produce anything outside a defined limited scope of activities and which is not allowed to extend its business and use its by-products and operations to its own best advantage? Of course not.
This is always the case with nationalised industries so long as there is a Tory Government. The railways are hemmed in on every quarter. Their operations are chopped off. Last year they were prevented from building passenger vehicles. They were prevented from carrying out modernisation schemes. They were prevented from getting the capital to go on with modernisation schemes. Now they are prevented altogether, not even on the basis of commercial competition on price with private concerns, from producing these types of vehicle which are essential to their operations and which are


directly concerned with their operations. There can be no justification for this.
The simple fact is that we are approaching a General Election. The Tories have maintained a constant propaganda, aided by their newspapers and big advertisers, against nationalised enterprises. They have failed to show a case for denationalising one single nationalised enterprise. They are now becoming concerned about the continued and growing success of these enterprises. They will try at all costs to reduce the image of success of nationalised enterprises. This is one of the ways in which they are trying to do it.

2.40 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): We have had some fairly fiery speeches from hon. Members today, and I am delighted to have this opportunity to try to answer them. It is out of no disrespect to the House that my right hon. Friend the Minister is not here personally. Normally these sort of Adjournment debates are taken by the Parliamentary Secretary, and my right hon. Friend thought that the case today was so clear and simple that it would be a suitable occasion for his Parliamentary Secretary to speak. One advantage I may have is that I was not personally involved in the legislation and, therefore, I have a comparatively clear and unbiased mind on the issues involved.
My right hon. Friend is certainly not afraid of his record or anything else. He is certainly not afraid of defending his record, which is a good one. He has only recently approved the Board's proposals involving the expenditure of £1½ million on modernising the St. Rollox Works, which is close to my constituency in Glasgow. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I said "close", but it is not in my constituency. Some of the containers will be made there for the liner trains to which reference has been made.
The subject of this debate, like so many subjects, has two sides to it, and the Government, in reaching their decision, have carefully weighed up where the balance of justice and commonsense seems to lie. The House has today heard from hon. Members opposite their side of the case and, in the short time left to me, I would like

to put the other side and, in so doing, remove some of what I believe are inaccurate impressions that have been created.
One of these is that my right hon. Friend has initiated something new by his decision. That is not the case and it is not new by any means. I have made exhaustive inquiries and, so far as I can find out, never once in the history of the railways have they manufactured for private concerns, either before or after nationalisation. They have manufactured for themselves. They can still do that and they can also manufacture for other nationalised transport industries, but they have not in the past ever manufactured for outsiders.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Galbraith: Hon. Members opposite must accept what I am saying and hear me out. They may be interested, for example, to know that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Transport said:
This Bill is drafted for the purpose of dealing with transport.
Later he said:
…the Government have no intention…to bring in by a side door industries that are engaged in he manufacture of equipment…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1947; Vol. 433, c 230.]
That was what the Minister of Transport said when the Bill was going through Parliament—but I do not mean my right hon. Friend the present Minister. I mean Mr. Barnes, and the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) should know all about that because he was the Parliamentary Secretary at the time.

Mr. Strauss: That is not relevant.

Mr. Galbraith: It certainly is and presumably the right hon. Gentleman approved of his own Government's policy to limit and restrict, exactly the way the present Government have followed this policy of limitation in this respect.
Having given the House that quotation, if there is still any doubt about the position created by the party opposite, let us consider the evidence of the Chairman of the B.T.C., Sir Brian Robertson, as he then was, testifying


before the Select Committee in 1960. He said:
We cannot manufacture save for our own requirements…
That was absolutely specific and definite. Thus, under the Socialist 1947 Act the very restriction which hon. Members opposite are now complaining about was plainly in operation then, and the railways could not manufacture except for their own requirements.

Mr. Strauss: The Parliamentary Secretary is making an argument that is wholly false. Is he not aware that the wagons about which we have been speaking will be required for the railways and will be an essential part of the railways? Is he not aware that the "liner" trains will use these wagons? What does he think the railways are for?

Mr. Galbraith: I am pointing out that this situation existed under the Socialists—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—and hon. Members opposite are aware that the railways have always had on them wagons belonging to private firms. They have never manufactured the equipment themselves, and that is all I am saying.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Galbraith: Not much time remains for me in which to reply.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: The hon. Gentleman should give way.

Mr. Galbraith: I will not. As I have said, under the Socialist 1947 Act, the very restriction which hon. Members opposite are now complaining about was plainly in operation. This is not surprising. The purpose of both Acts—the 1947 and 1962 Measures—was the organisation of transport; not a revision of the ancillary functions which had grown up for historical reasons.
In his 1962 Act my right hon. Friend left the ancillary functions essentially the same as they were under the 1947 Act and—

Mr. J. T. Price: On a point order. The Minister is making statements which are not in accordance with the facts and I rise on this point of order, Mr. Speaker, because the subject before us will have to be debated later, at which point the Parliamentary Secretary will probably

say that he made these statements and they were not challenged by hon. Members on this side of the House. I want to make it clear, for the record, that my hon. Friends and I do not accept what he is saying.

Mr. Speaker: It is unkind of hon. Members to rise on points of order which are not points of order.

Mr. Galbraith: I am, as hon. Members know, only too delighted to give way, but on this occasion they must realise the difficulty I am in in view of the time remaining to me, particularly since I want to get my point of view on the record. I was explaining that in his 1962 Act my right hon. Friend left the ancillary functions essentially the same as they were under the 1947 Act. If he had been actuated by doctrinaire considerations he would have had ample justification for making changes and restricting the powers of the railways. He did not do that. He did not restrict their powers or extend them, but almost echoing the sentiments of his predecessor in the 1947 Act, he said:
The object of the Commission is transport, not necessarily the manufacture of articles.
If this were not sufficient, the then Parliamentary Secretary said:
Let them manufacture what they need for themselves…but do not let them go into wider manufacture".—[OFFICIAL REPORT. Standing Committee E, 1st March, 1962; c. 1029.]
There could be nothing more definite. When there are clear and categoric statements of policy from both parties, coupled with the views of the former Chairman as to the powers and practice of the railways, I do not see how my right hon. Friend's refusal to consent to this new extension of the railways' activities can be construed as an unexpected or unfair blow at the prospect of the railway workshops. What they are doing is seeking something new and they are being told, "No, you cannot have it." The principle is exactly the same as it was in 1962 and 1947.
The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) asked about the legal position. This, with respect, is a complete red herring. Presumably Dr. Beeching must think that he has legal powers, otherwise he would not have made the proposal. But Sir Brian Robertson clearly did not think that he


had powers—and the private manufacturers certainly believe the Board's proposals to be ultra vires. However, the legal issue is irrelevant because this is a decision of policy. It does not rest on the legality or otherwise of the Board's position. It was not admitted either by my noble Friend in another place or by my right hon. Friend in his letter—and it is not for me to judge because I am not a lawyer, nor is the right hon. Member for Vauxhall, and certainly the hon. Member for Swindon is not a lawyer—

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: rose—

Mr. Galbraith: I will not give way. It is no good the hon. Member for Swindon continually interrupting.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Nonsense.

Mr. Galbraith: The hon. Member for Swindon need not shout "nonsense", because had we thought that the railways' power could be construed in this way we would certainly have stopped the loophole—that is, if one actually exists. That is what only a court of law can determine. The legal issue, however, is utterly irrelevant because, as I say, this is a decision of policy. It is a reaffirmation of what has been consistent Government policy and rail practice all along. The Minister's decision is not a change at all. It does not affect the railways' power to manufacture for themselces. It merely says that they must not extend into outside trade. Incidentally, the cement wagons about which the hon. and learned Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen) spoke so heatedly the other day were not for private ownership. They were to be the property of the railways. They were not affected by this decision. This is an example of the false impression which can be created by people speaking too heatedly on the subject.
This brings me to the issue of competition, and here the fairness of the railways' tendering machinery is not in question. The problem is not one of disguised subsidy or concealed overheads. It is the inevitable issue of allocating overheads in an organisation carrying out a large volume of repair work as well as new manufacture. The hon. Member for Swindon and the hon. Member for Derby, North said that they were not satisfied when my right

hon. Friend said that he had been assured by the Board that it makes this allocation quite fairly. This is so, and he is so assured, but because of the inevitable difference between a nationalised industry and a private industry he thought it proper, as he told the House, to reserve his right at any time to examine thy: validity of the costings of the Board. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is no food hon. Members getting angry. This is the position. Hon. Members asked what was the position and I am telling them.

Mr. Popplewell: On a point of order. Can you advise my hon. Friends, Mr. Speaker, how we can take the Minister to task when he is engaged in a smear campaign, deliberately, from the Dispatch Box, and when there is no semblance of truth in his observations? It is a deliberate smear.

Mr. Speaker: There is some misconception about what points of order are. We always get into trouble about shortage of time on days such as this, and we must do our best to oblige everybody. I hope that we can stay off points of order.

Mr. Webster: On a point of order. Is "smear" a Parliamentary word?

Mr. Speaker: If it is not addressed to an individual, it is not out of order. The phrase was "a smear campaign", and I see nothing unparliamentary about that.

Mr. Galbraith: In view of what you have said, Mr. Speaker, I will spend no more time on this fishy, smeary business, whatever it is, but will return to the question of competition.
While it is proper for the railways to manufacture for themselves, because they have always done so, and to do this manufacturing on the basis of competitive tendering, there is surely something inherently different when it comes to going into the market for the first time and seeking to manufacture for outsiders—something they have never done before. This is not competition in the world of transport, which is what we are anxious to encourage; it is an extension of nationalisation into a manufacturing, non-transport field.
The argument normally used to justify a nationalised industry in doing this is


that private industry has fallen down on the job. But in this case private industry has not fallen down on the job. It is very well able to do the job. Indeed, private industry might retort to this charge that, if anything, the railways have fallen down on the job, and that they could not exist for a moment without the vast subsidies provided by the taxpayers, towards which private manufacturers have to contribute their share. Surely it cannot be regarded as normal competition that we should be forced, through taxation, to keep in existence a transport organisation which is then free to launch out into new and competitive non-transport, manufacturing activities.

Mr. Popplewell: It is not non-transport.

Mr. Galbraith: Certainly it is non-transport. Transport is moving a person from A to B. This is not moving a person from A to B. This is building wagons.
Next, there is the question of under-used resources in the railway workshop.

Mr. Popplewell: rose—

Mr. Galbraith: I have a good speech to make, and I wish that hon. Members would listen to it, if they are interested.
It is suggested that surely it would be more businesslike to occupy these resources fully. This argument has to a certain extent a specious attraction, but economically it is thoroughly unsound. The argument seems to be that as there has once been a need for resources of a certain kind at a certain level, that level must be maintained for ever. We have this sort of Luddite reaction from hon. Members opposite each time that an industry is modernised. I expect that if the Labour Party had existed when the railways were starting they would have been as active in condemning them and in championing the old coaching industry, with its under-used resources of blacksmiths and saddlers, as they are now in doing the very reverse. I am afraid that it is the Labour Party which is the more reactionary of the two parties.
This takes me to the question of redundancy, which several hon. Members have raised. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition spoke of the

Minister's decision as adding to the problems of redundancy in the railway towns. Which railway towns did he mean? Is he concerned only with the towns which have nationalised railway workshops? Does he not care about the towns which have private rail workshops?
The work at issue here is only of marginal importance to the railways; their workshops will keep going anyway. Furthermore, there will be no redundancy as a result of this decision. But without the prospect of this sort of work which we are discussing, private firms may go out of this business altogether, and plenty of them have already done so.
Several hon. Members have said that this decision of my right hon. Friend would be reversed by a Labour Government. I do not know whether that statement was made by the right hon. Gentleman on behalf of his party or whether it was just an idle threat because they know that they will not win the election. But if it is a statement on behalf of the party, it means that in all those towns and seats with private firms—and Cardiff is a good example; and I notice that one seat there is held by the marginal majority of 868—Conservative candidates can very well campaign that to vote for Labour means the possibility of voting oneself out of a job. Powell Duffryn, in Cardiff, a firm which has benefited from a wagon contract, might well not have had the work if the Labour Party had been in power and had been following the policy which they have advocated today.
I sympathise with and understand the view of hon. Members who have rail workshops in their constituencies and who wish to get as much custom for them as possible. This is very proper. This is what we are all engaged in doing; it is the sort of activity which we undertake on behalf of our constituents. Hon. Members who have railway workshops in their constituencies are mainly those who have been speaking from the opposite benches, and they want to have the work for a nationalised industry. For that reason they are seeking to create an innovation and an enlargement here.
But other hon. Members on both sides of the House who have private firms in their constituencies, such as the right


hon. Members for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) and Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) who both sit on the opposite benches, have expressed concern to the Government at the shortage of orders for private firms. They seem to take the opposite view and to believe in the status quo.
Frankly, when, as we all know, there is a reduced demand for wagons due to modernisation, it seems to me to be very odd, and indeed not quite fair, that an alteration should be proposed in the arrangements which have existed for so long simply to insulate the railway workshops from the process of change. This is something which affects everybody. Adjustments have to be made both by private industry and by nationalised industry to move with the times. It is a great mistake to use this situation as an excuse either for an attack on nationalised industries or for an attack on private industries, because such attacks are entirely irrelevant to the changed situation.

Mr. Strauss: Can the hon. Member tell us why Dr. Beeching asked for permission to build these wagons in railway workshops?

Mr. Galbraith: Not without notice.
I have given a number of reasons why this extension should not be granted, but that which weighs most heavily with the Minister is that he considers that the Board has quite a big enough task in trying to run the railways efficiently and does not want it to enter into a new activity which could distract the Board from its real job, which is movement. This is primarily a transport undertaking and not a manufacturing undertaking. It is most important that the Board should be free to give all its energies to this and to attend to the difficult task of transport. This is not a narrow-minded doctrinaire decision. It is not aimed at hurting the transport industry at all and I wish that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite could get that nagging and unworthy suspicion out of their minds.
There has been no change in the outlook of the Government. Our policy and purpose is simply to ensure that nothing stops the Board from concentrating wholeheartedly on making its section of the transport industry the most efficient

railway system in the world. The more it can concentrate on that, undisturbed by ancillary activities which are well catered for elsewhere, the more likely is it to succeed in the vital national job which only it can do.

EMIGRATION TO COMMONWEALTH COUNTRIES

3.0 p.m.

Mr. David Renton: I wish to refer to the need to encourage emigration from the United Kingdom to other countries of the Commonwealth. In raising this matter I am fortified by the fact that there is on the Notice Paper a Motion signed by no fewer than 101 hon. Members. It is:
That this House welcomes the declared policy of Her Majesty's Government to encourage emigration from the United Kingdom to various countries of the Commonwealth and calls upon the Government to implement that policy more fully by spending a larger proportion of the sums voted by Parliament for assisted passages under the Commonwealth Settlement Act.
The policy of encouraging emigration is so obviously sound and sensible that I do not recollect a single speech ever having been made against it in this House. Without emigration from this country there would never have been a Common wealth. But what about the future? In moving the Second Reading of the Commonwealth Settlement Bill on 1st Much, 1962, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations said:
…a steady flow of British emigrants to other countries of the Commonwealth is of benefit to all concerned, and is a source of strength and unity to the Commonwealth. This feeling is shared by the Governments of all the principal receiving countries, who continue to look to Britain to provide a substantial proportion of their new settlers.—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 1st March, 1962; Vol. 654, c. 1557.]
I am sure that we all agree with those sentiments. I think that my right hon. Friend might reasonably have added, because it is helpful and pertinent to consider the points that emigration to other countries of the Commonwealth tends to increase our own trade with those countries and, incidentally—although I do not wish to go further this afternoon on this point—it does something to relieve our own serious problems of population.
The principal receiving countries are Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and I happen to have cousins in all three of them. Each of these countries will have large numbers of immigrants for every year in the foreseeable future and each of them would like a larger number to come from Britain. I shall show that they have not been getting as many as they would like to have or as are willing to go.
I should remind the House of the opportunity given to the Government by the provisions of the Commonwealth Settlement Act, 1962 which gives authority for another five years to contribute £1½ million a year to schemes designed to encourage emigration. That legislation was the successor of other Statutes passed in 1922, 1937, 1952 and 1957. There was a time when better use was made by the United Kingdom Government of that opportunity given by Parliament over these many years. But since 1952 only £150,000 a year has been spent, only a tenth of the amount approved by Parliament.
During the Easter Adjournment debates in 1955 I complained about this, and other hon. Members complained during the debates on the 1962 Act. The arguments used by the Government on previous occasions may or may not have been valid then. But I suggest that they are quite untenable today and I trust that we shall not hear them repeated by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. The annual sum was cut in 1952 to £150,000 and this, I understand, was done as a temporary measure of economy. It was fixed at that low level as a mere token of our good will and is now used to pay a minor part of the cost of assisted passages to Australia. In fact, it provides about 15s. per passenger out of a relatively substantial fare, if a person wishes to go "right down under". It is a trifling sum compared with the tens of millions which are spent—rightly, in my opinion—by the Department of Technical Co-operation Overseas to help under-developed countries in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. So I hope that we shall not be told that we cannot afford to pay a fairer proportion of the modest sum which Parliament has approved in order to help the older Commonwealth countries in this way.
One it is accepted that the Government's policy of encouraging emigration is the right one, surely it follows that it should be properly and progressively implemented instead of being allowed to run down with every year that passes; for that is the effect of freezing the amount spent at the token level of £150,000 which has gone on for 12 years and which, I suggest, is gradually making a dead letter of the Commonwealth Settlement Act. By eliminating all other forms of encouragement, I understand that the sum is now confined to the assisted passage scheme to Australia.
What is the result of the policy which has been pursued since the war? This is a subject on which one could deluge a debate with statistics, but I do not propose to do so. I shall mention hardly any figures, but I think that I should mention that only about 20 per cent. of post-war immigrants to Canada have been British. There is no assisted passage scheme to Canada or any other Government help or encouragement at this end. Only about 50 per cent. of Australia's immigrants since the war have been British. New Zealand's immigration has been on a smaller scale, but I am glad to say that a very high percentage was from the United Kingdom.
There are three factors which govern emigration. First, the number of people here who wish to emigrate. Secondly, the number of people whom receiving countries feel that they can take altogether including those from the United Kingdom. Thirdly, the funds made available from our Government and other Commonwealth Governments concerned to enable emigrants to travel. I will deal in turn with each of these factors.
The number of people wishing to emigrate since the war has been more than have been able to do so. The numbers have varied from year to year, but last year as many as 172,000 applied for assisted passages to Australia. Owing to the lack of funds, only 55,000 will get their passages paid. It is only fair to record—and one is glad to do so—that 55,000 is the highest figure for many years. In addition, about 10,000 people will pay their own passages, or have them paid by people or organisations in Australia. They will include many skilled people who will go there anyway,


and there is nothing that we can do about it.
Among them there will no doubt be some doctors and nurses. Some of their future patients will have assisted passages and if we have to part with doctors and nurses it is as well that there should be plenty of patients to accompany them. Let there be no doubt about two things in this context. The first is that we shall lose some of our best people. But that has gone on for many years. It has made the Commonwealth what it is and I do not think that we should be inward-looking about this matter. There will still be vast numbers of good, skilled people left here.
The other point is that many skilled people will emigrate without assisted passages, whether we like it or not. If, in any event, some of the cream is going to be skimmed, I suggest that it is quite a good thing to let some of the milk go, too.
As to the number of people whom those three countries—Canada, Australia and New Zealand—would like to have from the United Kingdom, the fact that they would like many more is proved by the vigorous recruiting campaigns which their Governments are conducting in this country. To give one example, on Monday of this week the Evening Standard devoted a whole page to encouraging people to emigrate to Canada. The heading was:
There is no place like Canada.
Canada, land of opportunity.
Then the various ways of getting there by paying one's own fare were mentioned in the advertisements. I give that as an example, but no doubt there are others which are familiar to hon. Members. That, I suggest, is proof in itself of the desire of the Governments of those countries to receive British people.
There is no hindrance to increased emigration to be found either in the willingness of people to go or in the willingness of the Governments concerned to accept them. The only limiting factor is the lack of Government funds. Let me concede at once that it is quite right that the Governments of the receiving countries should make a greater contribution towards assisted passages than our Government do, in addition to con-

tributing a good deal towards the cost of establishing immigrant families in their own countries. But, as I understand the matter, those Governments feel naturally that, to use the words of my right hon. Friend, in the interests of Commonwealth "strength and unity", our Government should play an adequate and increasing part and not what is, in effect, a diminishing part.
In answer to a Parliamentary Question on Monday I was told that our Government are
always ready to discuss specific proposals by the Governments concerned".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd March, 1964; Vol. 692, c. 29.]
But I do not see why our Government should not use some initiative in this matter, especially in view of the recruiting campaigns. Surely Commonwealth relations are now mature enough for confidential discussions to take place. In view of our own attitude for the past twelve years, it would perhaps be understandable if Commonwealth Governments were reluctant to take the first steps themselves, but I think it is up to us to approach them.
I should, therefore, like to ask my hon. Friend three questions, to which I hope he will give definite answers. I believe that he has been aware that I intended to ask these questions. First, if any of the other governments concerned were now to make a fresh approach, would our Government make a fresh contribution, or would it still be limited to the present sum of £150,000? Secondly, if none of those Governments were to make a fresh approach, would our Government approach them? If so, would some extra money be made available?
I realise that assisted passages are not the only way of encouraging emigration. The Italian and Dutch Governments, for example, do a great deal to help their emigrants to Australia by encouraging a system of housing loans by which banks in Holland and Italy make advances to building societies in Australia. That has had a most beneficial result for the emigrants, In that they have generally got a house to go to when they reach their destination instead of having to wait as other immigrants sometimes have to do. I have sometimes thought that it is a great dislocation for people to have to take all their household goods and chattels with them, and perhaps the assisted


passage scheme could bear an element of provision for transferring these household goods.
May I summarise my views? Canada, Australia and New Zealand are going to receive large numbers of immigrants from somewhere every year as far ahead as one can see. They would prefer a larger proportion of those people to come from this country than have gone in recent years. Plenty of our own people wish to emigrate, but many of them have to be helped financially to a greater extent than is possible at the moment. The Government could do more to encourage emigration. If they were to do so, the Commonwealth would be strengthened, our trade would increase and our own population problem would be eased. Any Government which took this step should regard it as a sign of confidence in itself as well as a duty to the Commonwealth.

3.16 p.m.

Mr. R. W. Sorensen: I assure the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Renton) that I appreciate his motive in seeking to encourage emigration from this country to other parts of the Commonwealth. I think we all heartily desire that those who have been educated in this country and have absorbed our own British values should take them to other parts of the Commonwealth where they are already cherished, particularly in those areas to which reference has already been made, though this applies to a lesser extent in other parts of the Commonwealth. Nevertheless, I am sufficient of a British patriot who cherishes the inheritance of this country to hope that our assessment of human values, and particularly democratic values, is increasingly disseminated throughout the Commonwealth and further afield.
Emigration is inevitably interlocked with immigration, and, were it not for emigration and immigration, every part of the Commonwealth would be infinitely poorer than it is today. This country has been the recipient of many immigrants, not only from what is now the Commonwealth but from beyond. That is why our very mixed stock, of which my own name is one reminder, has probably benefited enormously. But the other factor is equally important.

We have been able to take our values to other parts of the world. We have been able to implement them. Although at times they have been adulterated, and, as we now regret and should have regretted before, we have not always been filled with as great a sense of responsibility as we should have been, nevertheless I have always maintained that, on balance, the expansion of the British idea, the British way of life and British values has been of substantial importance to all the peoples by whom they have been assimilated.
I differ from the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he suggests that we should encourage emigration. Certainly I think we should assist it and that much more should be done in that direction. The figures which he gave indicating the difference between what has been allocated and what has been used to assist emigrants are impressive, and I join him in urging the Government and other Commonwealth Governments to do all they can to assist emigrants from this country to settle in any other part of the Commonwealth in which they desire to settle.
However, it is one thing to assist and to urge greater assistance, and it is another thing to encourage. I see no reason why we should encourage emigration from this country. I say that because one of the reasons for emigration in the past, as has already been touched on by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, was to get rid of our surplus population. We have no surplus population now. The right hon. and learned Gentleman must know that we require all the people in this country to stay here if possible. Were it not for a very large influx of immigrants from other parts of the Commonwealth, this country would be in a very poor way. Its economy would suffer seriously. Therefore, to suggest a new impetus to get rid of our surplus population seems to me entirely to ignore the facts to which I have referred.
I repeat, therefore, that I do not see why we should encourage the emigration of our people. Only recently we have been lamenting what is called the "brain drain". Surely we are as much concerned about the departure of our people who are skilled without being necessarily academically highly qualified


as we are about those who are in the category of the alleged superior brains of the country. It is lamentable that we should increase the number of skilled men and women who leave this country to settle overseas when we need them here. If there is the menace of surplus population, which at this time I do not contend exists, a far better way would be to seek to control our own population here so that we should have a stabilised population.
I hope that it is not entirely irrelevant when I suggest that recent publications, including one dealing with South-East England, makes one aware of the need to control population. I do not enter now into the vexed question of how we should control it. The desirable thing is that we should control it so that we keep a fair balance, otherwise we shall absorb a great deal of our time in trying to catch up with our own tails.
Whilst I entirely disagree with the belief of the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire that we should encourage emigration, I would say, by all means, that we should assist it. Time was when we were only too glad to give all kinds of inducements to the unemployed to get out of the country to try and minimise the unemployment problem. I can remember from my earlier days the inducement offered by the then Government of Canada of about 160 acres of Canadian land for those who would go overseas, but today is a different time altogether. This does not mean to say that one does not want to see the intermixture of peoples. I most certainly do.
I want to see an increasing number of the people who want to go and settle elsewhere carrying with them our own attitude and that of other lands towards democratic institutions, but I would point out that although emigration in the past has been stimulated by other factors than are necessary today, it is nevertheless true that in India, despite all the forebodings, there are more British people living there than were living there before India obtained independence.

Mr. Patrick Wall: Is it not correct to say that there are more of these people working in India but not establishing their homes there and they

therefore do not intend to live there after they have retired?

Mr. Sorensen: I said "living in India". Their jobs keep them there and when their jobs are finished they will come home. This applies equally to Canada and Australia. The figures show that quite a number come back to this country after some years, though not because they necessarily wish to do so. I know many of them, and good luck to them. One reason why they return, particularly from Australia, is that they cannot obtain proper housing accommodation. Therefore, with all these stimuli that we apply to emigration let us at the same time make sure that those who emigrate are guaranteed proper housing.
It is for this reason that I have always believed that there must be some restriction on immigration into this country, because as long as we have a great shortage of housing accommodation for people who are already living here it is only fair to the immigrants to say, "Unless and until we can provide you with decent accommodation it is unfair to allow you to come in without restriction." The same applies the other way round. Constituents of mine have written to me from Australia, and some have corm back, whose lot has been wretched in the extreme. I do not blame the Australian Government. I know that they have established hostels and have done their best, but the fact remains that tens of thousands of emigrants who have gone from this country to Australia have had to live in thoroughly unwarranted conditions—

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: Has the hon. Member seen some of the housing estates in Australia? What about Elizabeth, which is just outside Adelaide and is one of the most beautiful housing estates one could ever see? There are tens of thousands of people living in Australia in far better conditions than they could ever have achieved in this country.

Mr. Sorensen: I am not being extravagant and I am not blaming the Australian Government. I am not unaware that there are these housing estates, but surely it is right for me to urge the need to guarantee accommodation for all who go there. I have not been to


Australia but I have many Australian friends who write to me. I concede what the hon. Member has just said, but that does not alter the fact that there are many of them who do not have that accommodation. Although in this country there are hundreds of thousands living in decent accommodation in new towns and on housing estates, that does not alter the fact that there are hundreds of thousands living in wretched conditions. And so in Australia.
I am surprised that the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire did not mention this point, because merely to encourage the outflow of people from this country to other parts of the Commonwealth to settle down there and sometimes to have to wait two, three and four years before they get this accommodation is surely something deplorable which requires recognition from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I do not seek to be contentious in my comments on his otherwise excellent contribution to the debate, but I think that we should require from the Australian and other Governments that adequate accommodation should be made available within reasonable time for all emigrants from this country.
I see that hon. Members opposite are most anxious to intervene and I will merely say again: let us certainly encourage the free flow of peoples from one land within the Commonwealth to another. Let that also be recognised as a contribution to the very nature of the Commonwealth. Let that, however, not be accepted as meaning that no restrictions must be imposed, but let it also carry with it a guarantee that those who settle elsewhere have decent accommodation. Until this is guaranteed, emigration should not be encouraged, though it may be assisted in certain circumstances in exactly the same way as immigrants into this country should be assisted and welcomed but, nevertheless, should not be allowed to come here unless decent accommodation is provided for them.

3.28 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wall: I hope that the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) will not think that I am

lacking in courtesy if I say that he seems to blow both hot and cold or, to put it in another way, he damns the subject with faint praise. Surely, he realises that people who emigrate from this country should not expect to find a Utopia when they arrive. I agree that they should be able to find accommodation and be reasonably housed, but they cannot expect Utopia. They are there to work for it. The great contribution which British people have made to the Commonwealth as a whole by going to these other countries to live has been in the work which they have done and the value of this work in consolidating the spirit of the Commonwealth.

Mr. Sorensen: Will not the hon. Gentleman agree that that is equally true of immigrants into this country, without whom our economy would have suffered grievously?

Mr. Wall: I entirely agree. I hope that the House will accept that, at a time when there is a definite strain upon the new Commonwealth in both Africa and Asia, and at a time when Britain has been excluded from Europe, it is increasingly important to strengthen the links binding us with the old Commonwealth, our partners overseas who are basically from our own stock.
It is not just a matter of reducing the overcrowding in this small island by taking advantage of opportunities which exist elsewhere. Many other factors have their importance. For example, it can be shown that, wherever there has been an increased flow of emigrants of British stock to another country, there has been an increased flow of trade. In the last five years, emigration to Australia has not been running at a high level, and I notice that in the same five years the British share of the Australian market has declined by 4 per cent. whereas the American share has increased by 12 per cent., the Japanese share has increased by 180 per cent. and the West German share has increased by 96 per cent. Moreover, we should not forget that there are great opportunities in Australia and other expanding peoples will fill them if British do not. This should be borne in mind by the whole Commonwealth.
I quite agree that we should not expect only the best young men and


women of Britain to go to other Commonwealth countries. Commonwealth countries must be prepared to absorb a reasonable cross-section of our population. In fact, this is what they do. If a Commonwealth country takes a British family, it expects to take some of the older generation as well as the younger.
In the past few years, Britain has had a net inward flow of people. There have been more immigrants into than emigrants from this country. This can be an asset. I am sitting between two immigrants at the moment, my hon. Friends the Members for Rye (Mr. God-man Irvine) and for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet), one from Canada and one from New Zealand. We all recognise the great, contribution they and other Commonwealth members render to this House. However, considering purely the question of area, it seems ridiculous that this small island, with a population of 52 million, should be receiving more people than it sends away to the vast under-populated lands of the rest of the Commonwealth.
I come now to the means by which we can encourage emigration from this country. There have already been references to the Commonwealth Settlement Act, and it has been pointed out that in the last year for which we have figures we spent £150,000 on assisted passages to Australia and £10,000 on maintenance allowances and so forth for child migrants. We find these figures in Table 13 of Cmnd. 2217, the Oversea Migration Board's Statistics for 1962.
Is this all we spent? We have the figures published by the Oversea Migration Board, but do they show all that we spent out of the total sum allotted of, I understand, £l½ million a year? If it is, it seems to reflect a lack of imagination on the part of the Government on this important subject.
The money could be used in many other ways. There have already been references to housing, and there is the example of what has been done by other European countries not so directly concerned with Commonwealth emigration as we should be.
There is also the question of the work of the Oversea Migration Board itself. It

has been in existence now for about ten years. In 1960, it stopped making annual reports and in 1961 and 1962 published merely tables of statistics. Any Government office can do this. Yet I understand from a reply given in the other place last May, the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations said in answer to a Question, that
the Oversea Migration Beard has not met in recent months because there have been no new schemes of emigration for it to consider."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. House of Lords, 22nd May, 1963; Vol. 250, c. 281.]
The terms of reference of the Oversea Migration Board are surely to do exactly that, to make suggestions for new schemes of Commonwealth emigration. If the Board had not met for several months in that year, how often has it met since? I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, who is Chairman of the Board, will be able to tell us a little more than we can find out from the White Papers. How many times has the Board met in the last 12 months, and what constructive and positive work has it done?
I turn now to some of the principal Commonwealth countries. The population of Australia has increased from 7¾ million at the end of the Second World War to 11 million now. I understand that about 50 per cent. of Australians come from British stock. But, in 1962, according to the tables in the Command Paper to which I have referred, British emigration to Australia decreased, and so did our trade, by 4 per cent. I am sure that we are all glad to see the arrangements which the Board of Trade is making to hold trade fairs in Australia in the coming months. We wish them success.
In New Zealand about 75 to 80 per cent. of the population of only 2½ million are of British stock. Emigration to New Zealand has increased in the last few years, and so has its trade with this country. I understand that New Zealand purchases £50 worth of British goods per head of population, which is a record for any country in the world. In Canada the population has increased by 4 million since 1951. Here again the percentage of British stock is under 50 per cent. and it is decreasing. Only 10 per cent. of the people entering Canada since World War II have come from this country.
Southern Rhodesia—a wonderful country—needs to increase its population of British stock. I am sure that it would be agreed that if Southern Rhodesia had a more balanced population some of the political pressures which exist there today would decrease. There was an increase in emigration to the Federation just prior to its dissolution and I understand that about 450 people emigrated to Southern Rhodesia in the first month of this year and that about a third of them came from this country.
One can say that the wild stories that one hears of people pouring out from Southern Rhodesia because of certain political issues are not true, although they have some basis, because there was a building boom in Salisbury for many years. Now the country is over-built and people are going south to the Republic of South Africa, which is enjoying an all-time boom in building and many other sections of its economy. We must agree, I think, that Southern Africa has an important part to play in the future of Western civilisation. Therefore, we should encourage migration to that part of the world as much as we possibly can.
Finally, I wish to touch on a subject which has not been mentioned so far, and that is child migration. We all agree that Canada and Australia can offer opportunities to some of the younger members of our population which cannot be matched by the opportunities offered in this country. In this connection, I should like to refer to the Fairbridge Society and the schemes operated by it. We must always be careful when talking about emigration because it still seems to some people a hangover from the days when convicts went to Australia. The President of the Fairbridge Society is His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester and the Chairman is Viscount Slim. That gives a complete cachet to its standing and suitability.
This Society operates farming schemes in Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. It will take, not only the individual child, but also a family if it has lost one parent, or, in certain cases, if the family is very large, it will take both parents and the

family. The object is to establish a new family in a new country.
One difficulty which springs to mind when talking about child migration is the detaching of the child, whatever opportunities may be offered to him, from his family and relations in this country in order to establish him in a country many thousands of miles away. That may cause certain strains to develop in its character. The Fairbridge scheme gets over this by taking the brothers and sisters, and even both parents in large families, and establishes the whole family in Australia.
It amazes me to learn that, instead of there being a long queue of people wishing to avail themselves of the opportunities offered by the Society, there is a number of vacancies today. I hope that this debate will serve in some way to publicise the opportunities offered by the Society in Australia.
I understand from Home Office pamphlets that there are 60,000 children in care in this country and that they are costing the country about £16 million a year. The average cost per child in care is £5 3s. 4d. per week. Of these, 19,500 are in local authority homes, where the cost per head goes up to over £10 a week. Surely, some of these children could be allowed an opportunity to take the advantaged offered by the Fairbridge scheme.

Mr. Godman Irvine: As I am a member of the Council of the Fairbridge Society, perhaps I can be of help to my hon. Friend about this aspect. I have been carefully into the question of children being available from the sources which my hon. Friend has mentioned. The first thing that emerges is that a great number of the children in care are there only temporarily owing to family difficulties, a great number are in due course adopted and a number are foster-children. There are, therefore, not a great many available.

Mr. Paul Williams: May I add a sentence? Surely, the great problem is to encourage local authorities—I say this in no party political sense—and principally the London County Council, to be slightly more venturesome in this way, because this is a means whereby they could contribute to the solution of their own


problem and also set up a new community overseas.

Mr. Wall: I am grateful for those two interventions. In reply to the second, I hope that one of the advantages of this debate will be that it draws the attention of local authorities to the openings that are offered.
I was coming to the aspect of which my hon. Friend the Member for Rye has spoken and I should like to quote a few figures. As my hon. Friend has said, most of the large number of 60,000 children are in care for only a short time. Fifteen thousand are in care because of the short-term illness of a parent or guardian and 10,000 because of the confinement of the mother. There are, however, over 300 with no parent or guardian, another 300 have been abandoned, 2,000 are illegitimate, 677 are in care because of the death of the mother and over 4,000 have been deserted by their mother. This makes a total of about 8,000, some of whom could well benefit by being able to adopt the advantages offered by migration to places such as Australia.
Four years ago, in April, 1960, the Joint Commonwealth Societies met together to discuss the question of migration. They passed unanimously the following resolution:
That this conference believes that an increased flow of British migrants is a matter of supreme importance to the expanding Commonwealth. It calls upon the Government to adopt a more active course to increase this flow and asks that a greater proportion of the money voted by Parliament under the Commonwealth Settlement Act should be applied for the purpose for which it was created.
I believe that that resolution expresses the view of the House. The Government have found the money, but they should apply themselves more to seeing how it can be spent. We all wish to maintain our Commonwealth links and emigration is one of the best methods of so doing.

3.43 p.m.

Mr. A. G. Bottomley: In concluding the previous debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations engaged in blatent electioneering. It is to the credit of the right hon. and learned. Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Renton) that he has dealt with his

case dispassionately, clearly and concisely. He deserves our thanks and congratulations.
It is a good thing that the House of Commons should debate from time to time the important subject of emigration from Britain. The whole history of this Island and our place in the world has been based on the remarkable dispersal of the British people to other lands. The propensity to colonise will probably be seen in 500 years' time as the dominant feature of the British. I use the word "colonise" not in its bad sense of dominating other people, but in the sense of going across the world to settle in unknown countries.
Let us face it. The Englishman is a good coloniser and a bad one. He is good when he is in company with other immigrants building a little bit of England overseas. His ability to do that makes it all the more difficult for him, because sometimes he is unable to fit in with already established societies. Perhaps our friends the Scots are better in this respect than the English. They scatter over the whole world with their Burns societies and Caledonian clubs, but they manage to adopt the ways of the countries in which they live.

Mr. Wall: And run England.

Mr. Bottomley: That is another matter, and I shall not be drawn into that argument.
There is still a strong impulse to emigrate to other countries and a desire for British immigrants into other countries, as no one can deny who has looked at the figures recently. In Canada, as the hon. Gentleman has already said, Britain's share of the total number of immigrants was for some years declining, certainly after the very high level of 1957, when the increase, we know, was caused by the Suez fiasco, but it is encouraging to find that whereas in 1962 we sent only 25,000 people to Canada, last year the figure rose to 40,000. This is very heartening. Australia, too, expects about 65,000 to go to that country this year, and about 55,000 of those will be assisted by the Australian Government.
There is to my regret, I must say, a flow of emigrants to the Republic of South Africa.

Mr. P. Williams: rose—

Mr. Bottomley: I should have thought the reason was obvious and I do not want to develop the matter, for there are other hon. Members who want to speak.

Mr. P. Williams: Why "regret"?

Mr. Bottomley: The question which I hope we shall discuss frankly and openly today is whether the British Government should discourage emigration or discourage it, or simply let it take its course according to their individual initiative and subject to inducements which Commonwealth Governments may wish to extend—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why regret it?"] It is all very well to talk, but it is not an easy question. Do not be so rude. This was a civilised debate till you started to be rude.

Mr. P. Williams: Mr. Deputy-Speaker, are those remarks addressed to me or to you?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): I was under the impression that they were addressed to the hon. Member, but I hope that we shall get on, because there are many other hon. Members, who wish to speak, and these interruptions are just a waste of time.

Mr. Bottomley: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was not addressing the remarks to you. I was really objecting to the hon. Member's interjections for the sake of other colleagues who want to speak today.
I was saying that this is not an easy question. On the one hand, we want to retain the closest possible relations with Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and emigration keeps our four countries bound together in those ties of blood which, I feel, will always be more important than legal institutions. On the other hand, we want to keep in this country the skills and initiative which potential emigrants possess.
This is not a country—or it should not be a country—where people find that there is no scope for their abilities and initiatives. I hope that there will always be a fair number of what I call positive emigrants—people who want to go for the love of change, of adventure, wanderlust, call it what we will. It will be a sad day when the British people do not

have a fair sprinkling of such bright people in other parts of the world, but I do not want to see any negative emigration.
I do not want anyone leaving this country because the old country has had it, because he feels he cannot get on, because he does not wear the right tie, because he feels we have a class-ridden society still, or because it is not possible for an average working man to earn a dignified and comfortable living here. All of these are potent factors at present. We have got to stop all that. That is quite apart from the drain of our scientists and technicians away to countries where they can earn better salaries.
For myself, I shall be happy when I see the return flow of those people back to this country. But that cannot come about till we put this country back into a fit state to induce them back. Even then there will be emigration, perhaps as much as or more than at present, but emigrants then will be going to something and not from something, and I hope that that is an important difference. I think that is what we have to do, and the voters will have an opportunity to assist in that in a month or two's time. We have got to get this country right first.

Mr. Wall: What is wrong?

Mr. Bottomley: Permanent emigration is of great assistance to our Commonwealth relations. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who underlined that.
But there is another part of this field which I should also like to see greatly expanded. These days, a large number of our young people spend a year or two abroad in their early twenties. Nothing can better cement our Commonwealth relations and help us to understand our Commonwealth partners than the practice of the young people going abroad and getting to know each other. I think that this will do more to consolidate these good Commonwealth relations than anything else.
There are others who could do this work. There are many engaged in business, and administrators, and I think that they, too, could gain from a period of a few years in another Commonwealth country. Emigration need not now be the boat-burning operation it


once was. I should like to see a perpetual change, a kind of butterfly movement, so that we could bring in the Commonwealth and by this means join peoples who otherwise might remain in their own country and never move out, if it meant moving to a permanent residence.
I suppose that we are entitled to ask where the Government come in. First of all, it is the job of the Government to administer the economy and the social order of this country so that it is a good, prosperous and happy place in which to stay. Second, they should encourage all sorts of exchange of personnel, as I have suggested, for short periods. Lastly, they should place no obstacle in the way of other Commonwealth Governments who want to entice people to migrate to their lands, provided that we are not losing a significant part of our population with all its skills. My hon. Friend intended to say "either by brawn or by brain". I think we have to recognise that, although we want to keep our people here as far as possible, we ought not to place restrictions upon their moving if they wish to do so, because I believe that by this means we can gain and strengthen the ties of blood with the Commonwealth.
I have here a copy of the Oversea Migration Board's Report. I agree that it is not much of a Report; it is nothing but statistics, and even in this case it is guesswork. It seems odd that we cannot have a more accurate way of getting these figures. I hope that the fact that this has been mentioned in the Report and that the Minister has signed it will mean that there will be pressure on those Departments which are responsible. I suppose that in the case of the Home Office it will be said, "We are concerned only with those who come in", and that in the case of the Foreign Office it would be said, "Anybody who wants to leave the country can do so." But there ought to be some way in which we can collate the figures, and the suggestion in the Report that come-thing can be done in regard to air passengers ought to be followed up.
The Board, I am sure, was established in order to recommend schemes of emigration. I have looked through the list, as others must have done, and there does not appear to be a recommendation of any kind. As a matter of fact, when

the Duke of Devonshire spoke in another place—he was the chairman of the Board at the time—he said that there would be a meeting of the Board if there was a request. That seems to be the wrong way of going about it. I should have thought that the Government would have taken the initiative. Not only ought they to ensure that there are meetings, but I suggest that they might even improve the Board by having other representatives upon it.
In this respect, I think of the migration councils of the Churches, bodies like the Fairbridge Society and similar ones which are associated with them. We know the good work of the Church of England, the Catholic Church, the Methodists and the Salvation Army in this respect and I would try to enlist their help so that more could be done. Why should we not have members of other Commonwealth countries at least associated with the Board, if not as members of the Board? I believe that, by this means, we could get more positive development of migration between this country and the Commonwealth, both ways.
The Government, who have always professed to be Empire-minded, have not done what one would have expected them to do. I am informed that, since the end of the war, the United Kingdom Government have spent about £8½ million on the assisted emigration scheme. The overwhelming part of it—£7 million—was spent by the Labour Government. One would have thought that this in itself would have been an inspiration to the present Government. I urge them to do more about Commonwealth migration.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. Paul Williams: There is no article of food, there is no raw material of your trade, there is no necessity of your lives, no luxury of your existence which cannot be produced somewhere or other in the British Empire if the British Empire holds together, and if we who have inherited it are worthy of our opportunities.
Those were the words used by Joseph Chamberlain in 1903, so the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley) will forgive me for mentioning the British Empire. I repeat:
…if we who have inherited it are worthy of our opportunities.


I ask the Government whether they are worthy of the opportunities which have fallen to them.
On 6th November, 1963, my hon. Friend signed the Report of the Oversea Migration Board in which, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, he referred to figures gained by guesswork. The Report was presented to this House proposing no positive policy, merely recording past facts. A few days later, we had the White Paper on Central Scotland, the White Paper on the North-East and, only this week, the White Paper on South-East England. Is it not time we had a population policy for the Commonwealth? I again repeat:
…if we who have inherited it are worthy of our opportunities.
I ask the Government to consider seriously whether they are matching up to the opportunities available to them so to plan a strategy for Commonwealth population policy as to make the best use of the assets of this nation, not just in terms of internal movement of population from the South to the North or from Wales to Scotland, or whatever it may be, but in terms of disposing our material assets for the further propagation of our way of life.
I suggest that, since the war, this country has failed to think sufficiently positively about a Commonwealth trade and population policy. The hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) referred to a "brain drain" I regard the export of people from this country to the Commonwealth not as a loss to this country, but as a positive gain for the, Commonwealth, for each person—indeed, each family—who goes abroad is not necessarily a loss, but the opening up of a new market in an expanding Commonwealth.
That is why I believe that we should, which ever party is in power, have a positive population policy for the Commonwealth. Of course, there are details of housing, of financing the movement. There are hesitations about providing cash, either directly from Government sources or through building societies for providing the first necessity of life in an overseas country—housing. But these hesitations could be overcome. As has been said already, these are practical problems which, in the sophisticated atmosphere of the Commonwealth of the 1960s, can be talked out between friends.
I would have thought that the absence of policy in this Report of the Oversea Migration Board, Statistics for 1962, was symptomatic of the lack of positive thinking in Commonwealth terms by the Government. I particularly ask my hon. Friend to reply to the comments of the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East on the guesswork in getting statistics. We all know that the Board has been hammering on this subject for years. Surely, as Chairman of the Board, my hon. Friend can now report that the Government intend to take more positive action to solve this problem. If it means legislation, let us know; if it means Statutory Instruments, let us know; but if it can be done by administrative action, surely we can have a declaration here today.
I understand that the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) would like to take part in the debate and I will, therefore, curtail my remarks to my first point: if we who have inherited the Commonwealth are to be worthy of our inheritance we should have a more positive policy for Commonwealth migration.

4.1 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) for cutting what he had to say so short. I must do the same. I understand that the Under-Secretary would like to speak at five minutes past four and I shall, therefore, be as brief as the hon. Member for Sunderland, South.
I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Renton) on initiating the debate, but I think that he attempted to oversimplify a little. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) posed a number of problems which have interested those of us who think about these things; for instance, the problem of what to do when it is found that many of our ablest and best people are going away—whether to let them, or encourage them, and so on.
For my own part, I should like to encourage them and I shall briefly say what my own interest in encouraging emigration is. I am not interested in


counting heads and I would not agree with the hon. Member for Sunderland, South about a population policy for the Commonwealth. But I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley) about passing on some of the ideas which make up our way of life. I do not agree with him that we should do it in a temporary sense. I do not want people to go to the Commonwealth for a short time and then return. I should be happy to see some of our key people in skilled occupations and in professional and administrative jobs going to the Commonwealth, both the new and the old, settling there and being creative in their work.
I will give just one illustration of what I have in mind. I am not enough of a student of history to know, but I am told that when the large influx of the Irish arrived in the American colonies, at roughly the same time as many other immigrants from other countries, there was one thing the Irish had which was different from the experience of others—some understanding and some knowledge of how elective machinery worked, what voting was and, in a rough and ready sense, what democracy was. Many of the other people in the Colonies did not know. For that reason the Irish were a spearhead in the building up of democratic institutions. That is as simple an illustration as I can give.
Our people are accustomed to a particular kind of academic freedom and if they settled in countries like Canada and Australia and the rest of the Commonwealth, they would take with them our ideas of academic freedom. I cannot feel any sadness about what is called the "brain drain", even when it goes out of the Commonwealth to the United States, because in so many respects the United States is so close to us in interest, destiny, habits, nature.
On the other side, I would expect there to be a compensating movement with ideas coming to us in the same way as ideas go from us and those people who return coming back with some absorption of ideas from their temporary colleagues overseas. But if they stay we shall be compensated by others coming from Canada, Australia and the United States, who can show us that our notions of academic life are not the only ones.

I strongly believe in the creative value of a movement of ideas, both for ourselves and for the Commonwealth.
The money allocated by the Commonwealth Settlement Act should be spent. A few years ago, when the Under-Secretary was a back bencher, he suggested that one of the ways in which money should be spent was in research. I agree. We need further research into how the money can be spent to improve housing. Evidently some people are in difficulties, and unhappy. What is the best way to relieve this situation? So far, the Government have explained the difficulties. We want to know how they can be overcome.
In the same way, money could be spent in working out methods of making it easier for our local authorities to feel that when a child emigrated to one of the Fairbridge schools it would not be out of their care. Their difficulty arises from the fact that they feel responsible for these children and do not want to appear as tough they are shuffling them on to other people's shoulders. We want. to devise methods by which we can make certain that they will be able to keep in touch continually with the children, and will always be able to ensure that youngsters are being well looked after.
I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words in this debate.

4.6 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Colonies (Mr. R. P. Hornby): I am sorry to have to rise before some of my hon. Friends have had an opportunity to speak, especially as two of them come from Commonwealth countries, one from New Zealand and one from Canada. We need only my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison) to have a round table of Commonwealth Members who wish to speak.
I very much welcome the debate, because we are all aware of the important part that migration has played in the history of the Commonwealth. I am aware of the interest taken in the subject by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Renton) and other hon. Members on both sides of the House, many of whom have signed an early day Motion relating to the subject.
I share the wish expressed by the right hon. Gentleman to see Commonwealth links strengthened in every way. I agree with him that migration is one of the things that can play an important part in that respect. I also agree that we have a domestic reason for taking an interest in this subject, namely, the problem of congestion that we have to face in some parts of the country. For all those reasons I welcome this interesting and timely debate.
The best thing that I can do is to deal with the points raised by hon. Members and also to sketch out the main lines of Government policy in this matter, but first I want to make one point which is absolutely crucial and essential to the subject. Emigration—the choosing of a place where one is to live, probably for the rest of one's days—is an intensely personal decision. It is not essentially a Government decision. Every prospective emigrant must weigh up for himself the advantages and disadvantages of living here or going elsewhere.
One factor which must be taken into account as part of the background to this debate—and it is not a matter of party dispute—is that, generally speaking, we are proud of the standards of life of our people. Conditions in England today are very different from those which produced what one might call the heyday of emigration in the 19th century, admittedly with all that it meant for the long-term good of the Commonwealth. Those conditions from which the emigration statistics over the years have been built were very different.
I now turn to the main lines of Government policy. We recognise the advantages—to which my right hon. and learned Friend referred—which emigration can bring in strengthening links with the Commonwealth and promoting Commonwealth trade. Of course it is a help if there are many people in overseas countries of the Commonwealth whose roots, whose language and whose affections come from Britain. Of course it is a help if those same people retain their affections for Britain and in rising in their industrial, commercial or agricultural life in new countries wish to continue to do business with Britain. Of course, therefore, it is a help to our trade.
I make one point on the matter of trade. We should beware of pressing that argument too far, as I thought was done to some extent in one of the speeches in this debate. Trading conditions for British industry all over the world, whether in Commonwealth or foreign countries, are intensely competitive. We trade, not on Commonwealth favour, but on the quality of what we produce. This is how both British industry and our Commonwealth customers would wish it to be.
Our migration policy is based on three main factors. First, we have to recognise that the flow of migrants depends primarily on the absorption capacity of the receiving countries. We would do neither ourselves nor the prospective migrants any good if we were to press for rates of emigration which led to conditions of inflation, unemployment or severe housing problems such as were mentioned by the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Sorensen).
Secondly, we have to take into account the free choice—I emphasise the word "free"—of individual people. It is not for us to compel them either to stay or to go. Thirdly, it should remain our policy to give such help and assistance as we feel able to provide to Commonwealth migration bearing in mind the needs of those who may want to go, the needs of the receiving countries, and also the needs of the people who will be staying behind in this country.
In pointing out what has been happening, I shall try not to give the House too many figures but I shall give the salient ones. They add up to the fact that a steady flow of people has been going from Britain to the Commonwealth since the war, numbering at the end of 1963 1,470,000. The figures have risen steadily. The figures for Canada, Australia and New Zealand in 1961 were, in round figures, 67,000. In 1962 they were 71,000. In 1963—an approximate figure as the final total is not yet in—they were 86,000. Over the last five years Canada has taken 20 per cent. of her immigrants from Britain, Australia about 35 per cent. and New Zealand about 45 per cent.
Although I recognise that these percentages are not so high as some of my hon. Friends would have hoped for, they are no mean figures when we remember


that about 50 per cent. of immigrants between the ages of 20 and 44 were educated at Britain's expense and were in the prime of their working life. I emphasise this as a substantial achievement because we have to recognise that it has been done at no small cost to ourselves. The receiving countries are no longer today merely concerned with numbers. They are highly selective. They want skilled people and semi-skilled people, young and active but not old people. To quote just one example, the majority of those now going overseas come from the skilled and semi-skilled of our construction and manufacturing industries, precisely the people of which this country is in urgent need here and now.

Mr. Renton: This is terribly important. Surely my hon. Friend knows that all three of the countries with which we are concerned accept the family, and if necessary three generations, as the unit of immigration.

Mr. Hornby: I must point out that the bulk of those going and the bulk of those to whom the advertisements which have been referred to in the debate are directed, are the skilled, the young and the active, people who are urgently needed here. We must realise that these figures of migration, which we welcome, are figures which are achieved at a cost to our own economy. I say deliberately that we welcome very much the fact that so many are going. If any hon. Member doubts that fact, I would like to mention the facilities which we give to the receiving countries through the 900 offices of the Ministry of Labour, which make their services available to Canada, Australia and New Zealand for the distribution of migration literature and for the arrangement of interviews.
I realise that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends and some hon. Members opposite feel that, despite the numbers going and the help which we give, we none the less are doing too little. In particular it has been mentioned that insufficient use is made of our powers under the Commonwealth Settlement Acts.
I would like to make clear one or two points about that Act. First, that Act or series of Acts is the means whereby Her Majesty's Government may con-

tribute to the migration schemes of Commonwealth countries or of other public or private bodies. It was never the intention of those Acts that they should be the means of initiating migration schemes from this country without the initiative first coming from other bodies.
Secondly, I would like to take up the point about the amount which we spend. It is not factually correct to say that we are underspending the amount voted by Parliament. The position is that the £l½ million mentioned in that Act is a ceiling figure, deliberately set as a ceiling, above which expenditure on such schemes as might be proposed may not rise. The amount to be spent each year is the amount which Parliament annually may approve for expenditure on any individual scheme which may then be proposed. The facts are that Canada and New Zealand have not at any time since the war sought agreements with us under these Acts, and our impression has been that they prefer to finance and operate their own migration policies without financial assistance from us.
Australia's case is rather different. I would now like to mention this briefly. The bulk of our financial assistance under the Commonwealth Settlement Act in fact goes to Australia and it goes in two ways—in the contribution which we make to the assisted passages scheme, the details of which the House is aware of, and also in the contribution which we make to various child migration societies. I think that the House should beware of assuming too readily that, if we were to increase the amount which we contribute to the assisted passages scheme, an increase of migrants to Australia would automatically follow. The House may like to know that the British quota under the assisted passages scheme was 35,000 in 1962–63 and 45,000 for the current financial year, and that has been increased still further to 55,000 to July of this year. These are record figures and I hope that my hon. Friends and others will take encouragement from them, as we do. We have, by and large, filled our quota. A total of 46,989 people left Britain under the scheme in 1963, and contrary to what has been suggested, it is not true to say that over the years there have been large queues building up for the assisted passage scheme. There have


been variations from time to time but, by and large, those who have wanted to go have been able to go.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) was, I understand, perfectly correct in saying in his intervention about the Child Migration Scheme that the problem was that there had been a sharp falling off in the number of children taken into care, who were available and anxious to take part in the Scheme. We welcome the work that has and is being done by the voluntary societies and the new branching out of their activities into slightly different spheres of this work.
Appreciating that another subject is to be debated after this, I am sure that hon. Members are anxious that some time should remain for that discussion to take place. I would not like to close, however, without saying a word about housing, the importance of which I recognise, and the bearing it has on the rate at which the receiving countries can absorb immigrants. Reference was also made to the Oversea Migration Board. The terms of reference of the Board are such that it is for the Board to consider such schemes as may be put to it by the Secretary of State, and if individual members of the Board wish to raise points for discussion it is open to them to ask for a meeting. The Board last met in November of last year.
I was also questioned about migration statistics and the amount of information that can be made available. From the beginning of this year our statistics will be based on a 4 per cent. sample of incoming passengers and a 7 per cent. sample of outward passengers covering both long sea voyages and air routes. I hope that these statistics, which are on a sizeable scale, will give hon. Members, who have criticised the statistics available, a greater degree of confidence.
I welcome the discussion we have had on this subject and the opportunity of repeating that we are ready, as always, to consider any specific proposals which Commonwealth Governments may wish to put forward. I recognise that the proportion of British migrants is not as high as it once used to be, but this reflects changing circumstances both in this country and in other countries

with emigrant populations. When the House considers what is now being done, bearing in mind the numbers who are leaving Britain, the cost of their education here, the loss they represent in skill and the gain they represent to the receiving countries, I am sure that hon. Members will not wish to belittle too much the contribution which is being made to the strengthening of Commonwealth links by emigration today.
Still less will hon. Members wish to belittle it when they remember that in addition to those going out to settle, there are countless numbers of people who leave this country for limited periods, perhaps under the Overseas Service Aid Scheme, and those who go abroad in employment in private industry. In all these ways we are anxious to adapt our policies as best we can to the wishes of individuals, other Commonwealth Governments and the needs of our own economy, remembering that our economy is dependent on our trade throughout the world, especially with the Commonwealth.

AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE (PESTICIDES)

4.25 p.m.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: It is almost exactly nine months since I last raised this subject with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture—nine months during which it is fair to say that garden and farm chemicals have contributed still further to deaths and loss of fertility among birds and other wild life, to the pollution of water supplies in some areas and probably to minor illnesses and the build-up of undesirable residues in human beings, even with some possible deaths. I say "probably" and "possible" because with human beings we just do not know. We cannot always accurately measure cause and effect in human beings as we can in some other species. So much is new and so much is unknown, so much is cumulative and persistent, and so much depends on the combination of chemicals, the susceptibilities of individuals and other influences which we have not yet studied.
The speed of production of new chemicals which are coming out to meet


new problems, combined with this situation, makes it extremely difficult for even the most well-intentioned manufacturer to carry out all the research which is necessary before these products are put on the market. But one thing we do know—and it is that the birds, like the miner's canary, give some indication as to what has happened. They warn us of danger. They give us time to organise control for ourselves. But I emphasise that for the birds themselves and other species of wild life there is very little lime, if any, available.
I will save time, because the period allocated to the debate is already very limited, by quoting a report in the Guardian of the Report of the Joint Committee of the British Trust for Ornithology and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It stated that between September, 1962, and July, 1963, it was found on the analysis of 333 bodies which were fit for examination that 303 contained quantities of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides. Analysis of eggs showed that 42 samples out of 46 were similarly contaminated. The pesticides most commonly found were aldrin, dieldrin, D.D.E., and D.D.T. It goes on to say that the birds most affected included blackbirds and thrushes and also birds which feed in flowing and standing water, such as the great crested grebes and herons.
It is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs that in spite of this evidence—and this is the first point which I want to make to the Minister—and the Report of the advisory committee, the restrictions which the Minister has agreed to accept do not come into operation immediately. I stress that some of the most valuable birds of prey—and I mention four of them—particularly the peregrine, the golden eagle, the kite and the osprey, need urgent action if extinction is to be prevented. There are half the number of peregrines there were before the war, and only a quarter are breeding. It may be that we are already too late. But it is quite certain that unless we ban the suspect chemicals immediately we shall be too late to save some of these species.
I know that the Minister has taken a decision, but I ask him, in conjunction with all interests concerned, to see

whether it is possible to bring in a ban on aldrin and dieldrin immediately and not to wait till the end of this season, and, in respect of sheep dip, not to wait until the end of 1965, as he proposes. He knows that Americans felt so strongly about the dangers of these chlorinated hydro-carbons in sheep dip that they banned mutton and lamb from New Zealand which had been contaminated by sheep dip. New Zealand replied by banning the chlorinated hydro-carbons in sheep dip altogether.
Therefore, this matter is urgent, and I cannot accept what the Minister said on Tuesday that no great urgency is shown. Both from the point of view of wild life and of human beings the sooner we can bring this ban into operation the better. I wish to know why we are not doing so. There seem to be two possible reasons. One is that the manufacturers have stocks of which they wish to dispose, and the other is that we do not wish unnecessarily to alarm the public. Both these reasons are most unsatisfactory.
We cannot afford to play fast and loose with chemicals of this kind. The Advisory Committee said in its Report that there is a lack of evidence of danger in respect of some of these chemicals. I find that rather surprising because the earlier parts of the Report seem to indicate that the Committee had found considerable evidence. In any case, the point is that whatever it says about the lack of evidence of danger, we have a complete lack of evidence of the safety of many of these chemicals, which is equally important, and we are entitled to draw attention to that.
I am also concerned at the statement of the Minister that he might allow the use of some of these chemicals for relatively minor uses. I should like to know the extent of those minor uses because many a minor makes a major, and we could find that the ban was becoming ineffective. I wish to stress the importance of this in respect of men, women and children, because it is not only a question of danger to birds and wild life. We ought to use the experience which we have gained from the study of wild life to gain information about the possible danger to human beings. I should like to see more research done on this aspect of pesticides and insecticides.
Now that the Advisory Committee is to go to the Minister of Science an opportunity is provided to look at the work of the Committee and its composition. This body should sit permanently. The interests represented upon it should increasingly come from the non-Governmental conservation interests, so that immediately a clue is obtained from some incident affecting wild life contact could be made with the Committee and the clue could be followed up.
The terms of reference of the Committee should be almost unlimited. They have been widened, but I think that if the Committee obtained any kind of clue from any other country, or from any source at all. It should be followed up. The Committee should report regularly at least every six months and we should not have to wait for some special catastrophe or difficulty to occur before getting a report. There should be a link between the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food so that Ministry of Agriculture publications relate to the findings of the Committee. That would seem an elementary matter. We do not want a repetition of such a disastrous booklet as that relating to chemicals in gardens which was a Ministry publication—

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): indicated dissent.

Mrs. Butler: The Minister shakes his head, but I still regard it as a disastrous booklet and so do many others.
In order to help research, and so that any clue may be brought to the attention of those conducting the research and in order to help increase public knowledge, because everyone—manufacturers, advisers and everyone else—stresses the importance of public knowledge and responsibility in this respect, the containers of these chemicals should be clearly marked with the active ingredients in the chemicals. I selected at random one or two containers from a local shop and I wish to draw attention to them in order to indicate what I mean. The two to which I refer are ant killers.
Some ant killers contain aldrin and most of them contain chlorinated hydro-

carbons of one kind or another. I have not the slightest idea what is in these containers which I have brought along with me because there is no indication on the labels. They might contain aldrin or something even more toxic. I do not know, and neither does any member of the public who buys them.
The same applies to the other products which I have with me. One is called "Tulisan". This is a pesticide the container of which again has no indication of its contents. However, they all bear the statement that one must carefully avoid breathing the spray and that if any is spilt the skin must be washed with soap and water. There are other references to the need for keeping the substance away from animals and children, which would seem to indicate that there is a danger, though there is no indication of what the danger is. Another container indicates that the contents are based on pyrethrum, D.D.T. and Lindane. But very few of these containers give such information.
It is useless to expect the public to use care unless they know what these various chemical containers have in them. I would quote as an example the danger of Tritox. The Minister will know that one user of Tritox lost his spaniel in the autumn of 1959 because the spaniel lapped a container of Tritox which had been left about. The owner of the spaniel contacted the shop from which he bought the Tritox, as well as the head office of the suppliers, to try to discover its ingredients so that he could apply an antidote. Neither of them knew. The information had to be obtained from the manufacturer, when it was ascertained that the dangerous element in the Tritox was fluoroacetamide. The antidote which was recommended proved to be useless. That illustrates how important it is for people to know what they are using. If people want to avoid using aldrin or dieldrin, or any of the other chlorinated hydrocarbons, before the ban comes into operation, they should be able to do so by looking at the label on the container.
I would point out that the example which I have given of Tritox was reported to the manufacturers and, I believe, to the Ministry in the autumn of 1959, but the ban on its use as an insecticide did not come into operation until this year, four and a half years


later. These examples draw attention to the fact that we need more control over pesticides, and the Ministry is the body responsible for this.
I am sorry that my time is so curtailed because I want to say a few words about the new methods of factory farming and their importance in this respect. This again has two aspects—first, cruelty to animals and secondly, danger to human beings. As to cruelty, there is a great argument going on as to whether these battery methods of producing chickens and the intensive rearing of calves, pigs and other animals is cruelty, or not. I believe the Ministry is on record as saying that the deprivation of light and exercise and the boredom from which the animals suffer is not cruelty. That is purely a matter of opinion.
I believe that everybody would agree that a point can be reached where this intensive breeding of animals and the deprivation of their normal living conditions becomes cruelty. As to what particular point that stage is reached there may be some difference of opinion, but we are obviously moving in a dangerous direction when we permit this development of farm factories. The more intense the cultivation of animals under these conditions, the more chemicals have lo be used to keep them healthy, but the more dangerous it becomes to the human beings who consume them. This seems to me to be a vicious circle and a very dangerous process about which we know very little. If it becomes even more concentrated and intensive it appears that the end result is likely to be a nightmare both for the animals and the human beings concerned.
I would draw attention to the fact that Denmark has already banned battery bird-raising as being inhuman, and it does not allow forced production of beef and veal. This is an indication of a process which we might follow, but as a direct point I would draw the Minister's attention to the fact that the Protection of Animals Act, which is often cited in this respect, came into operation in 1911 and that in that year nobody could possibly have had any idea of what the methods of animal husbandry would be today in the factory-farm production that we now have.
The Act, therefore, is quite inadequate to cope with this type of animal

husbandry. Just as the Home Secretary has set Up a Committee to examine the old Act dealing with cruelty to animals, covering animal research so as to bring it up to date, so it seems to me necessary for the Ministry of Agriculture to bring the Protection of Animals Act up to date. I was glad to know that the Minister s looking at this whole question. I hope that he will do so very quickly and will take some action on it.
We do not know how many such farms there are or whether they are growing in number. I believe that the Ministry says that the number is diminishing, but others tell me that they are increasing. We do not know whether more animals are being brought into this kind of production. We know very little indeed about it.
We also need research into the effect on human beings of some of the substances used in this intensive animal production. I am glad that the Ministry has taker up with vigour the danger of antibiotics in milk, but surely it also ought to be concerned about the use of antibiotics in the feedingstuffs of animals reared it these conditions. I believe that it is true to say that farmers can use any level of antibiotics they like to add to the food of animals raised in this way This must be a potential danger to people who eat meat thus produced Doctors are worried about it. I understand that the difference between life and death in acute cases of disease may depend upon the amount of antibiotics which the human being has absorbed through food or in other ways before going into hospital.
We do not know the effect of continuous pest-spraying in this type of animal production. We do not know the danger of eating eggs produced by birds which have fed on mercury-dressed grain. This is a point which has come to us from Sweden, where I understand that the use of this grain for poultry has now been forbidden. Another matter about which we are still unaware in this country s the danger in the injection of animals with hormones. We have seen some evidence from America. We have no research on it over here. Research into all this is urgently necessary. We muse have it as soon as possible, and we also need legislation making it compulsory to mark or label in some


way all non-nutritive additives in food. This is essential. This is done in Germany. I hope that we are moving towards it here.
I have mentioned Sweden, Denmark, America and other countries where there is experience of these things. I thought that the Advisory Committee was a little exclusive in the way it concentrated on our experience in this country and tended to disregard experience elsewhere. Surely in this new world into which we are moving we need all the advice we can get from wherever we can get it.
I have expressed doubts which have been increasingly felt by a number of people in this country about the present trend in agriculture and the accumulation of chemical residues in wild life and in men, women and children. We are all consumers. It is not for us to prove the danger. We are entitled to ask the Government for assurances of safety based on the full facts, and these can be given only as the result of further research and further control, coupled with less susceptibility to vested interests whether manufacturing, commercial or other.
We are entering an extremely dangerous realm in which mistakes can be costly and the risks unpardonable. I urge the Minister to realise that the controls so far imposed are only the beginning and that they must be greatly increased and continuously applied in the interests of wild life and human beings alike.
This is not a sentimental matter. It is not a scare approach. It is a question of bringing our 1964 protection, research and control into line with 1964 scientific developments and synchronising the two as closely as we possibly can.

4.46 p.m.

Mr. William Yates: The House and the country will be grateful to the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) for raising this matter on the Adjournment. It is a great pity that, when a subject of such importance arises, we find ourselves, by our own rules, curtailed in discussion and limited to only another quarter of an hour's debate.
This is one of the greatest tragedies which Parliament is facing. What can I add to help? The Minister, I know, wants to speak. All I can say, as briefly as possible, is that the suggestions made by the hon. Lady concerning the prohibition of the chemicals which are causing offence will have to be acted upon by the Minister. The container in which every single spray or pesticide is sold must have on it a warning banner or ribbon to show the average person that he is messing about with something which is lethal, perhaps not to himself but to wild life.
In paragraph 130 of the Cook Report on Persistent Organochlorine Pesticides, it is said that
On grounds of human hazards, there is…insufficient evidence…to justify a complete ban
on these pesticides. Perhaps not. But it is then said, in paragraph 132:
We accept that there have been some bird deaths
from the pesticides. What the Report says, in effect, is that, so long as human beings do not die, some experiments can be done to find out how things are going in the chain reaction through wild life.
I speak to the House only as an amateur bee-keeper and collector of butterflies, but I hope that both we and the country outside will not wait until we learn a lesson as awful as has been learned in the United States of America. In the Mississippi River basin of Louisiana, last November, poisonous chemicals sprayed on farms—aldrin, dieldrin and D.D.T.—were found to be responsible for the death of 5 million fish and millions of birds, the crane and many others. I suppose that we shall have to wait for a disaster of this kind to convince us that the subject must be taken seriously.
I only hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us, in the next few minutes, that he proposes to put a total ban on these three particular pesticides even if it costs the manufacturers some money.

4.49 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Peart: I had prepared a speech on this subject, but time is running out. We had the opportunity to question the Minister two


days ago when he made an announcement about the Cook Report. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) on raising the matter. It is a matter of real importance, not a subject for sensationalism but one affecting the ecological problems of our country.
It should be borne in mind always that fundamental questions of food production are involved. We are using these pesticides, apart from in our gardens, for better food production. Therefore, we must have a right balance.
At the same time, we must bear in mind the effect which these pesticides have on wild life and domestic life and also the effect which their residues have on food production and plants which are later consumed by human beings. We are merely pleading that the Ministry should be very alert and should reconsider all existing legislation. We shall pursue this matter later, but we want urgent action. I was not satisfied with the Minister's statement the other day. I congratulate him on it as far as it went, and I congratulate all the scientists and administrators who have given him advice, but we need some urgency in this matter. If we are to err, we must err on the side of safety. The other major issue is the application of chemicals to food consumed by animals which we slaughter for consumption. This is a very real problem.
I trust that the Parliamentary Secretary, in the few minutes at his disposal, will give us a satisfactory reply showing that the Ministry is aware of this problem and will take urgent action in reviewing existing schemes and legislation.

4.51 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): I, too, am grateful to the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) for raising these subjects. I understand the great feeling which they arouse throughout the country. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) for putting the right perspective on these matters. He pointed out that we must keep a balance and remember the tremendous good which is done to the world's food supply

by the use of these pesticides. It is important to remember that. The debate has ranged over a very wide field and in the short time at my disposal I do not think that I can do more than answer some of the main points which the hon. Lady made.
It is important that we should remember that the Report which the Committee made and about which my right hon. Friend the Minister made a statement the day before yesterday in the House was the result of very careful work. The Committee sat many times while it was looking into these matters. But the Report deals with one small part of this subject. There is a wide field in which chemicals are used in agriculture, and I want to keep this matter in perspective. The use of herbicides and fungicides is not brought into question. The Committee was concerned only with insecticides, and among them only with the chlorinated hydro-carbons, that is to say, aldrin, dieldrin, heptachlor, B.H.C. and D.D.T.
The hon. Lady said that, in her view, the Report did not go far enough. However, the Committee took a great deal of trouble and investigated extremely carefully all the evidence put before it. It reported—and it is only right that I should read this once again—that
There is, for instance, no basis for statements that these persistent organochlorine pesticides are severe liver poisons…similarly D.D.T. and dieldrin cannot be condemned as presenting a carcinogenic hazard to man.
Whilst the Committee agreed
that there is circumstantial evidence for the view that the decline in populations of certain predatory birds is related to the residues found in such species arising from the use of aldrin, dieldrin and heptachlor and, to some extent, D.D.T.
it goes on to say that it has
received no evidence that the populations of other species have been affected by pesticides.
It is important that we should remember this, because the hon. Lady cast doubt on the evidence and the conclusions to which the Committee came. It recognised that there is no immediate hazard. There is no hazard to man at the moment—

Mr. Peart: No.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: This is what the Committee said on the evidence available at the moment. This has been accepted.

Mr. Peart: The Committee does not say that at all. There is still a hazard. The Committee recommends action, but it does not say that there is no hazard.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I was coming to that. I was saying that there is now no hazard from the use of these pesticides, but there is evidence of the possibility of long-term contamination of the environment. This is the point which the Committee stresses, and this is the recommendation which my right hon. Friend has accepted.
It was on this score that my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates) was worried lest we should wait for a disaster to occur. I am sure that he will have read the Report and my right hon. Friend's statement. We are taking action on the substances which he mentioned, dieldrin, aldrin and heptachlor. Indeed, after this year they will not be issued or used for other than sheep dips and some minor uses. There is, therefore, no question, as my hon. Friend fears, that we should have to wait for a disaster to overtake the country on the lines mentioned in the article which he quoted from a newspaper. The Government have taken, and are taking, action on this matter.
The point which I was trying to make when the hon. Member for Workington interrupted was that because of the environmental contamination which caused worry and anxiety to the Committee, my right hon. Friend has accepted its recommendations and has taken the decision which he announced in his statement two days ago. We are, I think, at one with the hon. Member for Workington in the action which my right hon. Friend has taken. I do not think that the Committee's recommendations in paragraphs 130 and 131 are at odds with the earlier recommendations in the Report concerning wild life. We are, I think, right in accepting what the Committee has recommended. We must keep a sense of proportion in these matters whilst accepting that hazards may exist and commending, as I am sure, the House will commend, my right hon. Friend for the action which he has taken.
We are fully alive to the problem of labelling, to which the hon. Lady referred, but in many insecticides there are

numerous constituents. Discussions are at present taking place. One does not want such a mass of constituents to be listed on labels as to cause the public not to read them. A whole mass of ingredients may be contained in existing preparations and people simply do not read them. We must, therefore, be certain that the right ones are listed to give the public an idea of what is being used.

Mr. Peart: What about research?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I have many other points to deal with and I come next to that of intensive livestock, to which the hon. Lady referred. It is a pity that time does not permit me to deal with everything that she has said.
Once again, this is a development which we must keep in proportion. In many instances, animals which are kept in intensive conditions are extremely healthy. I know full well from my own experience that an animal must be healthy to thrive. Every farmer wants animals to thrive; that is the purpose of farming. Unless the animals thrive, there will be no profit to the farmer. Animals which are unhealthy or are kept in bad conditions do not thrive. On that score, therefore, some of the hon. Lady's fears may be allayed.
That does not mean that there are not problems. I accept that there are, as does my right hon. Friend, who is concerned about standards of management under these intensive systems, both those which already exist and those which are being developed. My right hon. Friend shares the concern of the House and of other people in this matter. Indeed, it is a subject on which some of my hon. Friends have put down a Motion.
[That this House notes with disquiet the conditions under which large numbers of animals and birds are now reared intensively for human consumption and the practice of supplementing their diets with non-nutritive additives; and urges Her Majesty's Government to consider whether steps should not now be taken to regulate some of these methods of husbandry.]
My right hon. Friend has this very much in mind and is considering what kind of expert body might be best fitted to give him the advice which he needs on these matters. The objective will be to ensure that the conditions under which


stock are kept by these intensive methods are all that they should be: in other words, that they conform to certain minimum standards. I hope that this will largely satisfy the hon. Lady
I apologise for not having had time to answer the many other points made by the hon. Lady and her hon. Friend the Member for Workington. It is sometimes worse merely to skip over the edge

of them. I will, however, write to the hon. Lady and to her hon. Friend on any further matters which they wish to know about on these two important subjects.

It being Five o'clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, till Tuesday, 7th April, pursuant to the Resolutions of the House of 19th March.